Warriors keep Rhinos at bay

Pat Richards: a try and five goals

Wigan maintained the pressure on Super League leaders Warrington with a battling 26-24 victory over Leeds at the DW Stadium.

The Warriors hit back from an 18-12 half-time deficit to lead 26-18 with 10 minutes to go.

But Zac Hardaker's second try hauled the visitors back into the contest and Danny McGuire looked to have won it for the Rhinos at the death, only for the video referee to rule out the try for a knock-on.

The defeat leaves Leeds in sixth place and still looking for a first win of the season over the teams above them, but this was a much-improved performance on last week's tame derby defeat by Bradford.

Finally finding some forward power, the visitors dominated the tackle area for much of the first half and deserved their interval lead.

Skipper Kevin Sinfield, who moved to within 10 points of the Super League aggregate record of 2,395 held by Wigan half-back Paul Deacon, gave the Rhinos an early lead with a penalty.

The match looked to be going according to the formbook when England second rower Joel Tomkins brushed off McGuire's attempted tackle to get winger Josh Charnley over for the game's first try.

However, Leeds stunned the 16,426 crowd at the DW Stadium with quickfire tries from winger Ben Jones-Bishop, who was first to Brent Webb's grubber kick, and Webb himself after taking advantage of a handling error near his own line by the normally reliable Pat Richards.

Wigan struck back when second rower Ryan Hoffman was on hand to collect Richards' flick from Deacon's high kick and Richards added his second conversion.

However, the champions were hardly convincing and they conceded again just before half-time when makeshift Leeds centre Carl Ablett cleverly palmed on Rob Burrow's pass for teenage winger Zak Hardaker to finish well at the corner.

But that was as good as it got for the Rhinos, who made the worst possible start to the second half, handing over possession to their opponents from the re-start deep inside their own half and conceding two further tries in five minutes.

Forward

The Warriors scored from their first set of tackles, moving the ball smartly out to the wing where Richards touched down - although the final pass looked ridiculously forward - and Leeds had barely recovered from that shock when Brett Finch got Hoffman running into a gap and centre George Carmont was in support to score.

Richards added both conversions and took his goal tally to five from five attempts with a penalty on the hour that crucially put two scores between the sides.

But Leeds battled back as Hardaker grabbed a second try from McGuire's pinpoint kick to the corner and Sinfield's touchline goal cut the gap to just two points.

McGuire then went over four minutes from the end but slow-motion replays appeared to indicate he dropped the ball in the process of kicking through and the try was disallowed.

It was a cruel finish for Leeds but this performance will give them some belief that a play-off challenge is still not beyond them.