Warriors hold off Tigers

Wigan held off a brave Castleford fightback to defeat the Tigers 18-12 at The DW Stadium in the second of Super League's elimination play-offs.

The Warriors managed three tries but it was their impressive work in defence that was the key to their seventh victory in a row in front of their own fans.

Having been on course to shut out their opponents after an hour they did eventually concede though, and scores from Craig Huby and Joe Westerman made for a tense final few minutes.

However Castleford's comeback came up just short, meaning it will be Wigan who travel to Hull KR for next Saturday's preliminary semi-final.

Passion

With their Grand Final hopes on the line both sides were fired up in a first half full of passion and fight but riddled with handling errors and penalties.

The high number of turnovers was the major reason why the game remained scoreless until 22 minutes, though both sides were also rock solid in defence when their line came under pressure.

The Tigers came the closest to scoring, Richard Owen being held up just short of the line by a superb, try-saving tackle from George Carmont.

The Castleford full-back went close again, this time being denied by a combination of three Wigan defenders and the post, before the hosts finally broke the the deadlock.

Thomas Leuluai's bomb to the left wing was tapped back by the soaring Pat Richards, allowing Harrison Hansen to scoop up the loose ball and dive over.

The effort was eventually awarded after a lengthy viewing by the television official to determine whether Carmont had knocked on prior to Hansen getting his hands on the ball.

The Leuluai-Richards combination came up trumps again 10 minutes later, this time the scrum-half hammering a bomb high enough for his winger to grab and offload to Carmont, who squeezed over in the left corner.

Richards kicked both conversions from a tight angle before adding a penalty in the opening minutes of the second half to make it 14-0.

The Tigers' cause was not helped by the loss of the influential Rangi Chase to injury and when Amos Roberts cantered over on the right to score a third try for the Warriors, the game looked over as a contest.

But, with their season on the line, Castleford refused to go quietly and laid seige to their opponents' try line in a bid to finally get on the board.

Pressure

Their pressure paid off when Huby forced his way over, Westerman landing the conversion to make it 18-6 with just under 20 minutes remaining.

Westerman then set up a grandstand finish with a simple try from Owen's pass, the loose forward also kicking the extras to cut the gap to six.

The great escape looked set to be complete when Michael Shenton sent a kick on the last tackle into acres of space on the right wing.

Kirk Dixon did his best to catch up with the ball but the bounce went in Wigan's favour and as it rolled out of touch Cas knew they were done, a fine campaign coming to an end.

In contrast the Cherry and Whites live to fight another day in 2009, their reward for a hard-fought triumph being a trip to Craven Park.