Wolves win Wigan battle

Warrington joined the Super League leaders with a penalty-strewn 32-20 victory over 12-man Wigan at the Halliwell Jones.

Referee Steve Ganson may attract some headlines for whistling for a record number of penalties during the match, but no-one could argue with the red card he dished out to Richie Mathers when his high shot knocked out Matt King just after half time.

The Wolves had been in charge in the first half and tries from Vinnie Anderson, King and Chris Hicks gave them a 16-4 half-time lead with just Liam Colbon's try to show for Wigan.

The match really swung at the start of the second half when Michael McIlorum was sin-binned just before Mathers received his marching orders for laying out King, leaving Wigan to struggle along with 11 men.

Martin Gleeson, Paul Johnson and Chris Hicks all ran in further tries, but to their credit Wigan kept fighting and Andy Coley, Darrell Goulding and Harrison Hansen ensured that they kept it interesting at 32-20.

Good start

After a good start, Anderson powered over for the opening Wolves try after just five minutes, and King grabbed his second Super League try when he benefited from a good Louis Anderson offload to cross the whitewash.

Louis Anderson was then sent to the sin-bin and the Warriors took advantage of that and an Adrian Morley fumble to get on the scoreboard with Colbon diving in the corner.

Hicks should have scored for Warrington on the half-hour when he slid across the line but he failed to stretch out and was shoved into touch before he could ground the ball.

Just a couple of minutes later the hosts did get a third try when Morley fed the ball to the charging Parker who muscled over from close range.

Wigan saw McIlorum disappear to the sin-bin on 47 minutes, and Brian Noble's men then found themselves down to 11 when full-back Mathers rightly saw red.

The swinging arm of Mathers caught King around the chin and floored the big Aussie, who did recover after being knocked out but did have concussion, and referee Ganson had no choice but to order the Wigan man off.

Numbers

Gleeson and Johnson both made use of the extra numbers by running in tries against a stretched Wigan - but the visitors responded with a powerful drive over from Coley for 26-10.

Hick did get his try with 12 minutes left, and the gap proved big enough as Wigan came back with Goulding and Hansen both scoring nice tries as the Warriors threw caution to the wind.

The win was beyond them though and a game marred by penalties went Warrington's way to see them join three other teams at the top of the table on eight points.