Dominant Leigh beat Warrington to close on top six

Tries: Niu, Armstrong, Ipape, Hanley Goals: Cook 4

Leigh Leopards closed the gap on the top six in Super League with an emphatic 24-6 victory over Warrington Wolves on the first day of Magic Weekend.

Tries from Tesi Niu, David Armstrong, Edwin Ipape and Umyla Hanley helped an impressive Leigh cruise to their eighth win in 10 Super League games.

Warrington, who were missing 10 players through injury, including captain George Williams, Josh Thewlis and Toby King, were smothered by Leigh at Hill Dickinson Stadium, only scoring through Marc Sneyd’s converted try with just two minutes left in the game.

They remain second in the standings but could drop to third depending on the result between Wigan Warriors and St Helens in the showpiece event’s final game on Sunday evening.

In front of the watching Andy Burnham, the former MP for Leigh, the Leopards shifted the ball to the left and Niu skipped inside before powering over to open the scoring in the fifth minute. Adam Cook kicked the conversion.

Warrington scrum-half Sneyd’s careless goalline drop-out landed out on the full shortly after, allowing Cook to add a simple two more points bang in front of the sticks with the penalty.

A fantastic offload from Hanley then set Armstrong in the clear near halfway, and the Australian raced past opposite full-back Ewan Irwin to dive over in the right corner – before Cook was then timed out in attempting to add to the Leopards’ early 12-point cushion.

After a one-sided opening quarter, in which Warrington struggled to gain any sort of territory, they were penalised for an incorrect play of the ball and Cook added another goal from close range via the upright.

Warrington had a chance to get on the board late on in the first half following great work from 18-year-old Irwin, but he landed just short of the whitewash when attempting to ground the ball.

After a misplaced attacking kick from Sneyd presented the ball back to Leigh early in the second half, the Leopards were able to gain ground, and influential hooker Ipape scored down the left edge once the ball had been recycled.

Hopes of an unlikely Warrington comeback were effectively ended when Sam Powell was sent to the sin-bin after a tackle on Niu.

Ipape was then in the right place to pick up a loose ball and dash 50 metres, but Lam’s kick to Armstrong on the left wing was overhit, otherwise the Australian would have almost certainly had a second try.

Hanley, who had a terrific match at centre for Leigh, broke the lines of the Warrington defence while they were still down to 12 men and dived over underneath the sticks to end the match as a contest with just over 20 minutes remaining.

Warrington scored a consolation try when Sneyd intercepted a wayward pass from Gareth O’Brien to race clear and dot down under the sticks, with his try easily converted by Irwin.

Leigh Leopards boss Adrian Lam told BBC Radio Manchester:

“Very happy with the result, obviously, but I thought the way that we started – putting the game to bed really early – I thought we had a lot of intent about us so I was really pleased.

“I felt the plan we had to play them, we executed that really well. I thought Lachlan Lam had his best game of the season and I thought they all played really well.

“We needed him as a club to pull off a few of those moments today. He hasn’t been playing at his best, and we’ve had conversations about that, so we needed him to score a try to get that confidence back and there was some indication he was getting back to where he needs to be”

“We’ve been beaten by Warrington twice this year, once in the [Challenge] Cup, so we needed to get one back”.

Warrington Wolves head coach Sam Burgess told BBC Radio Merseyside:

“I’m disappointed. I thought we would give a better performance today, but they made it very hard from the start of the game.

“I don’t like losing. The performance was off today. I’m not relaxed about that. We had a good enough team out there to win if we performed.”

Leigh: Armstrong; Senior, Niu, Hanley, Hodgson; Cook, Lam; Ofahengaue, Horne, Mulhern, Halton, Trout, Liu.

Interchanges: Brogan, Davis, O’Brien, Ipape.

Warrington: Irwin; Webster, Smith, Hopoate, Ashton; Hayes, Sneyd; Byrne, Walker, Harrison, Bentley, Tanginoa, Currie.

Interchanges: Powell, Thomas, Wood, Holroyd.