St Helens continued their remarkable stranglehold over engage Super League rivals Warrington Wolves by overturning a 14-0 deficit to run in six second-half tries and hand new coach Mick Potter a winning start.
The Wolves, who have now won only one of 34 Super League meetings with their fierce rivals, went 14-0 ahead after tries from former Saints hooker Mickey Higham and Paul Rauhihi and two goals from Chris Hicks.
However, Saints roared back with tries through Lee Gilmour, Ade Gardner, Matt Gidley (2), James Graham and teenage winger Tom Armstrong.
The Wolves have not beaten Saints at Knowsley Road since the days of the Stones Bitter Championship in 1994, and their last victory against their local rivals was a 56-22 success at Wilderspool in 2001.
They made a bright start with Higham and fellow new recruit Garreth Carvell clearly keen to make their mark.
But it was St Helens, who themselves fielded two debutants in rookie winger Armstrong, 19, and close-season signing Tony Puletua, who almost took the lead in the 10th minute.
A typically flowing move saw the ball pass through four pairs of hands and culminated in Gidley finding Gardner on the right flank.
However, the Cumbrian wing had strayed into touch shortly before grounding the ball and video referee Ben Thaler swiftly ruled no try should be awarded,
Warrington, buoyed by the probing of stand-off Lee Briers, threatened too but first Kevin Penny failed to take Matt King's astute offload in his stride and then Ben Westwood dropped the ball with the line at his mercy.
Saints were forced to defend doggedly as Warrington grew in confidence and opened the scoring in the 31st minute through a routine penalty from wing Hicks.
Warrington's momentum continued and Higham showed outstanding strength and determination to burrow his way over from close range and touch down.
Hicks added a simple conversion from just wide of the posts to put the Wolves 8-0 ahead.
Warrington's domination continued after the break and they were rewarded with a second try in the 46th minute.
Monaghan made progress close to the line and his short offload found Chris Reilly, whose brilliant pass ushered Rauhihi over.
Hicks added the conversion but Saints came roaring back to hit Warrington with two tries in five minutes.
In the 49th minute, Gilmour sold Paul Johnson a clever dummy to engineer the space to race clear down the left flank.
Five minutes later, Gardner touched down in the right corner for a score awarded after verification from the video referee.
However, Long could not convert either score and Saints trailed by six points but Gidley touched in the 63rd minute after exploiting a hole in the visitors' backline to dive over in the right corner.
Gidley then added a second as Warrington collapsed and Graham crashed over for a fifth score before Armstrong wrapped up the win down the left flank in the dying stages. |
