Castleford 14-26 Warrington: Toby King scores twice as Wolves make it three wins in a row
Last Updated: 03/05/19 11:10pm
Toby King ran in two tries to help Warrington Wolves to a 26-14 win away to fellow play-off hopefuls Castleford Tigers in Friday night's Super League clash at The Jungle.
Man of Steel front runner Blake Austin created two of his side's four tries and was a constant thorn in the side of the Tigers, who trailed 26-6 before producing a late rally.
A third successive win keeps the Wolves on the heels of Betfred Super League leaders St Helens while the Tigers drop to seventh after suffering three successive defeats for the first time since 2016 in front of a crowd of 5,323 - their lowest of the season.
Castleford coach Daryl Powell was forced by his club's injury situation to give a debut to former Melbourne Storm centre Cheyse Blair, just three days after flying into the country and the new man endured a difficult time with his opposite number Toby King scoring two tries.
The Tigers also lost influential hooker Paul McShane with a shoulder problem after only seven minutes yet they made a dream start.
They failed to make the most of a 40-20 kick from stand-off Jake Trueman but struck in opportunist fashion when second rower Mike McMeeken intercepted Mike Cooper's careless offload and raced into space before getting the supporting Cory Aston over for the game's first try.
Peter Mata'utia added the conversion to make it 6-0 but Cooper made amends for his error in spectacular fashion six minutes later to level the scores with a barnstorming run in which he took four defenders over the line with him.
Warrington missed a glorious chance to add a second try when prop Chris Hill got full-back Stefan Ratchford racing into a gap only to ruin the final pass, although he did put his side in front with a penalty.
The turning point came 10 minutes before half-time when Tigers winger Tuoyo Egodo gathered Aston's high ball and got over the line only to be prevented from touching the ball down by the frantic efforts of Ryan Atkins and Ben Currie.
The Wolves immediately went upfield and King seized on Greg Eden's inability to collect Blake Austin's kick to the corner by touching down for his side's second try.
Ratchford was off target with the conversion attempt but slotted a second penalty goal on the stroke of half-time to increase the lead to 14-6 and the game quickly went away from the home side early in the second half.
A sniping run from former Castleford hooker Daryl Clark got King over for his second try and, after Mata'utia had put the re-start dead to gift the visitors a perfect attacking platform, Austin got England second rower Currie stretching over for a fourth try.
Ratchford took his goal tally to five from six attempts to stretch his side's lead to 26-6 and it could have been more.
Austin was held up over the line and both Atkins and Jack Hughes had tries disallowed by video referee Robert Hicks as Warrington piled on the pressure without being able to add to their total.
The Tigers then produced a late rally that brought them two tries in four minutes from Egodo and his centre partner Greg Minikin but it did little to threaten the Wolves' supremacy.
