St Helens 30, Warrington 22

Feb 16 2008

WARRINGTON coach Paul Cullen revealed he could be without Chris Bridge for the rest of the engage Super League campaign after he sustained a suspected ruptured Achilles in the 30-22 defeat at St Helens.

The former Bradford half-back was replaced in the 13th minute after picking up the injury while centre Matt King also sustained a torn calf and did not reappear in the second half.

With Warrington’s left side exposed due to King’s absence, Saints went on to effectively clinch victory with three tries in seven minutes shortly after the restart through Ade Gardner (two) and Paul Clough.

St Helens conjured a sensational fightback which harvested three tries within the space of seven second-half minutes to maintain their remarkable stranglehold over their engage Super League rivals.

Under-strength Saints – missing five key players due to injury – looked in serious trouble after the Wolves established a 14-8 interval advantage with tries from Chris Hicks and former St Helens duo Martin Gleeson and Lee Briers.

The scoreline put Warrington on course for their first victory at Knowsley Road since 1994 and their first anywhere against Saints since a 56-22 success at Wilderspool in 2001.

But St Helens coach Daniel Anderson spent half-time reminding his players of their quality and by the 47th minute they had scored three tries down Warrington’s left flank through Gardner (2) and Clough.

Significantly, all three scores came in the left-hand corner and Cullen said: “Chris Bridge, it appears, has ruptured his Achilles and he could out for the year.

“King has a possible tear in his calf and couldn’t make the second half. He battled on quite bravely because he did it in the first two or three sets of the game. It doesn’t help your rotations when you lose a full-back and a centre.”

Cullen conceded that Saints cleverly exploited Warrington’s left side in King’s absence.

“The game changed on the Matt King injury,” acknowledged Cullen. “I think Saints were very smart and set Matt Gidley right through on to Andy Bracek until Vinnie Anderson came into that left-centre position.

“That is what changed the game and until the final set of the game it’s five tries apiece at Knowsley Road, so I think we deserve some credit for that.”

Savvy Saints coach Daniel Anderson admitted he knew exactly what he was doing in targeting Warrington’s left side.

“We took advantage of Matt King going off,” he said. “I thought Matt Gidley was having a pretty solid game in the first half anyway but certainly it’s difficult when you put someone in that position who is not a recognised centre. Between Longy (Sean Long), Leon (Pryce) and Gids (Matt Gidley) we exploited that position in the Warrington side.”

Cullen’s underachieving Wolves just cannot find a formula to smash the Indian sign which St Helens have held over them for so long.

“It’s not a record that we speak about,” insisted Anderson. “If you can play with commitment and attitude and play with style then it sets your season up and we did that tonight. I thought we deserved it and there was some very high quality finishing in the second half.

“For round two, it was quite ridiculous for how good the competition is looking at this stage of the season.”