The Warrington guide to throwing away a twenty eight point lead but still winning 29-28.

On Saturday Wakefield wrote the book on throwing away matches when they lost to Harlequins 34-18 in the capital. The following day Paul Cullen almost wrote the second edition less then twenty four hours since the original was published on a grey day on the eastern side of the river in Kingston-upon-Hull.

Out of those that played against Saints, Warrington were only missing Matt King and Chris Bridge due to injury and it seems injury nearly cost them another two points at New Craven Park. They raced into a 28-0 lead after thirty minutes of the game dominating every area of the field. They were more powerful than the KR forwards, they were faster then the opposite three-quarters while Briers and Monaghan outclassed Fitzhenry and James Webster.

But the turning point did not come just before half time when, after four consecutive penalties, Jake Webster crossed over for a very suspicious try if I were to be biased. The turning point instead came as Stanley Gene took out Simon Grix with a head high tackle resulting in the young loose forward being stretchered off and not returning to the field. After this incident (which was put on report by referee Ashley Klein) the floodgates opened and KR ran in four unanswered tries within the space of twenty minutes, all of which were converted. Only a Micheal Monaghan drop goal secured the win for Warrington, which at the time put them thirteen points ahead with seven minutes remaining. The final score shows how Warrington collapsed worse than a pack of playing cards, which is something they have mastered in the past.

So who was at fault for this military style suicide? Well it would be easy to blame the coach, of course. He prepares and is in charge of the team from the players to the training staff. But the timing of the implosion itself, suggests the players themselves gave up with time remaining on the clock. Cullen could not walk onto the pitch and prepare his players for the final few minutes of the game. This of course could be another case of bad judgement by the head coach. As Grix was taken off the field, Mark Gleeson was put in at hooker with Jon Clarke being moved into that loose forward position. Could Grix have been that defending key KR couldn’t unlock, so Gene did it illegally and with force? Or was Clarke the weakness in the defence as most of the KR second half tries were scored and created down the middle? If you wanted to blame Cullen for this sporting suicide, his decisions on player positioning after Grix’s incident is the argument you are looking for.

If you were to blame the players, then your only argument is that they gave up. With twenty minutes remaining and twenty two points ahead they just didn’t want to know. In that case why the sudden change of heart half way through the second half? While they hadn’t scored a point until Monaghan’s drop goal Warrington were still applying pressure to the KR defence and played some very expansive rugby that failed to be converted into points. But non-the-less, the effort was there until the hour mark. In fact, they came close to scoring three times. The nearest miss was when Briscoe and Fox forced Paul Johnson into grounding the ball actually on the corner post.

So now we have highlighted two key suspects in the implosion. Who actually pressed the self-destruct button? Or are we looking at the possibility that KR failed to perform in the first half and that they are just better than Warrington when they want to be? In which case, I’m pretty sure John Kear didn’t include and murder sub-plot including a red robin in his original book.