Super League roundup: table-topping Dragons add to Warrington’s woe
Catalans Dragons maintained their four-point lead at the top of the Super League with a 30-10 victory over the faltering Warrington at the Halliwell Jones stadium.
It was another disappointing night for the home side who have now won just one of their past 10 games, dispensed with the services of their coach, Daryl Powell, and are hanging on to a playoff spot by their fingertips in fifth place. In comparison the Dragons have now won 10 of their last 11 games as they set their sights on the league leaders shield to put them in pole position for a tilt at the Old Trafford grand final.
Centre Adam Keighran fished with a personal tally of 14 points for the Dragons with a try and five goals, with other tries coming from Tom Davies, Mitchell Pearce, Mark Ikuvalu and Matt Whitley. Warrington claimed tries through Ben Currie and Josh Thewlis with Stefan Ratchford kicking one goal.
A Sam Halsall hat-trick helped Huddersfield to an 28-0 victory over Castleford that heaps more misery on the relegation-threatened Tigers.
Winger Halsall struck once in the first half and twice in the second to hand Castleford their fifth loss in a row and send them bottom of Super League. The Giants are still alive in the playoff race thanks to the onesided win at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle, the club’s fourth consecutive victory. Huddersfield raced into a 14-0 first-half lead thanks to tries from Halsall, Leroy Cudjoe and Chris McQueen and never looked like being reeled in.
The mistake-prone Tigers struggled to break down Huddersfield’s committed defence and lacked the attacking ideas or spark to get on the scoresheet. Huddersfield were having no such problems though, and the win sees the Giants move up to ninth on the ladder, ahead of Hull FC, and just two points away from the top six.
Hull KR had Wembley on their mind as Willie Peters’ patched-up Robins fell victim to a 12-try rout from an unforgiving Wigan at the DW Stadium.
Only two players remained in the Rovers starting lineup from the side that sunk Matt Peet’s men in a dramatic golden point Challenge Cup semi-final at Headingley two weeks ago, setting up next week’s first trip to Wembley since 2015. Bearing such fresh memories of that painful loss, Wigan were the last team to offer any mercy, as four tries from Abbas Miski and a 20-point contribution from Harry Smith sealed an emphatic 64-6 win that strengthened their grip on second place in the Betfred Super League.
Just when a bludgeoned Rovers rearguard thought the night could not get any worse, Jai Field stepped up with a lightning-fast hat-trick of his own in the final quarter of an hour to put the seal on a superbly focused performance from the hosts. By the time Field had contributed his hat-trick and Liam Marshall crossed for the 12th and final time of the evening, the minds of the Rovers fans behind the posts had long since turned to their imminent date at Wembley.