Warrington 26-6 Leeds: Dominant Wolves brush aside Rhinos
By Press Association
Last Updated: 03/02/19 1:32pm
Warrington underlined their title credentials after easing to a 26-6 victory over Leeds Rhinos in their Super League opener.
New signing Blake Austin was one of four try scorers as last year's runners-up justified the pre-season optimism surrounding the club against a Rhinos team that disappointed in their first competitive outing under new coach Dave Furner.
Stand-off Austin, a front-runner for the Man of Steel award, produced some classy touches on his Super League debut but Stefan Ratchford, Chris Hill, Mike Cooper and Daryl Clark came up with the major contributions as Warrington showed they could be the real deal in 2019 even without the injured Kevin Brown.
The Wolves, who also had Jason Clark and Danny Walker making their bows off the bench, even played the game with 12 men for 20 minutes with Jack Hughes and Toby King both shown yellow cards but never looked anything but comfortable.
There was little to encourage fans of the Rhinos, who are starting the season with four successive away games and have potentially daunting trips to Wigan and St Helens looming.
Full-back Ratchford was a constant threat and he opened the scoring after 14 minutes, taking Dec Patton's pass and jinking his way over for a try.
Ratchford converted and added a penalty goal to make it 8-0 before the Wolves struck twice more in quick succession to effectively seal the win before half-time.
Fast hands from centre Ryan Atkins got winger Josh Charnley in at the corner while hooker Clark wriggled free from the attempted tackle of Jack Walker and Matt Parcell to touch down for a soft try.
Ratchford kicked his fourth goal from as many attempts to make it 20-0 while Leeds' only real chance came four minutes before half-time when Walker was held up over the line.
The visitors tightened their defence in the second half but continued to struggle to find any cohesion in attack and the game became scrappy.
Austin scored Warrington's only try of the second half, supporting a break from Cooper, and Ratchford maintained his accuracy by kicking his fifth goal from as many attempts.
Leeds finally broke their duck four minutes from the end when loose forward Stevie Ward forced his way over from close range and Tuimoala Lolohea added the conversion.
