Hicks grabs win for Wolves

An injury-time conversion from Chris Hicks earned Warrington a 24-22 victory over Hull at the KC Stadium.

The full-back converted Matt King's try just five metres in from the touchline to keep the Wolves in the thick of the play-off race.

Hull looked to have kept their slim hopes of reaching the play-offs alive with a 74th-minute try from Kirk Yeaman.

But Australia international King - who has struggled in Warrington colours since his switch from Melbourne - overpowered the wing-centre partnership of tyros Tom Briscoe and Jodie Broughton to score in the corner.

James Lowes named England internationals Martin Gleeson and Adrian Morley on his bench less than 48 hours after they starred in the win against France, while squad member Ben Westwood also took his place among the replacements.

The Wolves were disappointing in the opening half though and the Black and Whites scrapped hard for a full-deserved 12-6 interval lead, handed to them by two tries from Shaun Berrigan.

Torrential

In torrential conditions the home side started the better with Matt Sing and Danny Tickle both creating half-breaks, although it took until the 13th minute for Berrigan to get the scoreboard running.

His first try in 11 matches was a well-worked effort too, swapping passes with Yeaman close to the left touchline. His second was a more opportunistic effort, darting over from the dummy-half position.

Sandwiched in between Berrigan's fourth and fifth tries of the season was a ninth score of the year for Warrington's flying winger Kevin Penny in what was one of only two serious attacks the Wolves mounted in the whole half.

Once Penny had snapped up a horribly wayward pass from Danny Washbrook there was little doubt he would eat up the length of the field and post a score topped up by Hicks' goal.

Hicks then missed a simple penalty that would have nosed his team ahead, only for them to close the half behind and with 12 men as Paul Rauhihi was sin-binned seconds before the hooter for dissent.

Their only other chance came late on too as Chris Riley was dumped in touch by Gareth Raynor as he looked set to score.

The Wolves returned after the interval with renewed purpose and were soon level for a second time, Lee Briers shaking off the would-be tackle of Sing to score next to the posts. Hicks added again added the conversion.

Dogged

Hull nearly regained the lead just two minutes later with a flowing last-tackle move that went through seven pairs of hands until Adam Dykes became one pair too many, before on-loan Leeds centre Broughton did cross the line with a fine dogged effort. Tickle failed with the goal.

Warrington fought back, taking the lead after Penny capitalised on Garreth Carvell's spillage to cross in the corner and Hicks made light of his conversion failure by punting a penalty with 13 minutes remaining.

Hicks did find his range to hand Warrington the lead with a penalty 13 minutes from the end before Raynor again denied Riley a score with another fine tackle.

Hull then looked to have won it when Yeaman crashed over after a sparkling move involving Sing and Dykes, only for King to finally produce some magic and give Hicks the chance to win the game.