Kenneth Jarvis, Warrington Wolves Blogger

They said that we couldn’t win a big game, and we beat Hull FC away to win the League Leaders Shield. They said that we couldn’t beat St. Helens at home, and we’ve just booked ourselves a ticket to the biggest game of them all. They say we can’t win the Grand Final, well it’s about time we put that right too.

This joy seemed all too distant the last time The Wire played in the Halliwell Jones Stadium, when a bitter defeat to Wigan left Warrington staring down the barrel of a bad end to a promising season. After that loss the odds were on Warrington losing out on first place in the league, and having to go away to Wigan to try and get to the Grand Final on the back of two tough losses. Instead, an inspirational performance last week enabled us to face the St. Helens game with confidence and belief.

Talking about inspirational, there’s one man in particular who comes to mind over the last couple of weeks, and that’s Chris Hill. If he’s the type of captain that leads by example, then what an incredible example he is setting to the rest of the players. We all know how good Hill is, but over the last two matches he has been phenomenal. The distance he can generate after first contact has always been one of his great assets, and St. Helens struggled hugely to stop his influence on a game. When you can back that up with the best hooker in the league, then it becomes a powerful weapon. This was one of Aston Sims’ best performances in primrose and blue as well, which bodes well for the final.

Kurt Gidley is another player who had a fine game, after a few weeks difficult weeks of form and injury, he was at his best to control the game for Warrington. He seemed to enjoy not having the kicking responsibility which enabled him to focus all his energy on orchestrating the team around the pitch and being pass perfect, whilst also scoring the opening try. The kicking duties that he used to have fell to Dec Patton, who was once again superb. Not many kickers excel in all aspects of the discipline, with Lee Briers being the best example of that, but Dec Patton’s goal kicking is as good as his in-play kicking and was a huge part of the win. If Sandow is fit for next week then some very difficult decisions will have to be made.

Even though we were the better team, it does appear that lady luck favoured us in the match as well. Looking back at the highlights I could claim with bias that there isn’t conclusive proof that the ball left Tom Lineham’s body, or that Peyroux grounded the ball, but it’s fairly obvious that wrong decisions were made. Whether it would have changed the outcome of a game Warrington dominated is pure conjecture, but I’ll be hoping that we get the same kind of luck in the Grand Final next week.

If we lost vs St. Helens, our young team and injuries would have been brought up as a significant reason. In victory however, these things aren’t mentioned as much. Chris Sandow, Ben Currie, Ben Westwood, Mitchell Dodds, Brad Dwyer and Ryan Bailey are all players who would have made it into the 17 if they were fit. Instead they’ve been replaced with young and inexperienced men who have done their club immensely proud in the last few weeks.

These young men, along with a few experienced heads will be aiming to do the town proud once more. The last game at home this season was a memorable one, and helped end the hoodoo of St. Helens always winning at the HJ. Warrington will look to end another one next week, and finally make it our year.