The Good
Warrington were wonderous in dominating Wigan 23-0 on Saturday. The Wire never gave the Warriors a sniff, with a display built around the fantastic front-row power and guile of Chris Hill, Daryl Clark and Mike Cooper. Tyrone Roberts ran the show from the number seven shirt, proving his marquee worth, and the likes of Josh Charnley and Ben Murdoch-Masila did the rest on the edges. Everything seem to go right for Warrington, and everything wrong for Wigan. From their malfunctioning attack, to Thomas Leuluai’s cannonball tackle, to getting rolled in the middle of the field, they just weren’t up to scratch. Shaun Wane’s side have now scored just one try in the past 160 minutes. With Wane leaving and a damage video of bad player behaviour emerging this weekend, pressure is rising at the DW Stadium.
St Helens and Hull FC played out an absorbing, enthralling and at times controversial clash at the Totally Wicked Stadium. Saints got the win, as most expected, but were pushed right to the edge by a fully committed Black & Whites. Hull FC had to deal with three sin-binnings, one at least that was unfortunate, but to their credit they keep plugging away and would not lie down. St Helens and the Black & Whites went hammer and tongs for 80 minutes in a quarter-final that didn’t disappoint. The standard has been set – more games like this are craved.
The Bad
Huddersfield against Catalans was not a contest for the ages. It was a low standard and featured two sides equally desperate to grind out a result. Common in this game, and in others this weekend, was players either faking or exaggerating injuries to try and con penalties out of officials. Although this has been happening occasionally for decades, probably since that historic meeting at the George Hotel in Huddersfield, it is becoming more and more frequent every match. The video referee is being enlisted too often to look at potential foul play in the middle of the field. Hopefully, this gamesmanship, which is essentially cheating, can be weeded out. It goes against the best traditions and ethos of the sport.
The winger bagged a double as @Saints1890 reached the last 4 #ChallengeCup
The Ugly
Two incidents stood out from Leeds’ elimination of Leigh on Friday night at Featherstone. The first was the dangerous and scary sight of Peter Mata’utia spearing Matt Parcell into the ground head-first in the first half. It was a tackle that went horribly wrong from Mata’utia, who was rightly sent off for it. The Leigh man should be facing a suspension as well for something that, luckily, Parcell wasn’t seriously injured from.
The second was the sight of Centurions fans’ constantly berating the referee when he consulted the video referee on several try decisions. At least twice cameras caught Leigh supporters running from their seats to spew bile at the referee, who stood only metres away. It was ugly and edifying, and should be simply stamped out.
