Warrington coach Steve Price says his side will bounce back stronger from their 38-12 destruction by nearest rivals St Helens.
The Wolves had gone top of the Super League after five straight wins but Price admitted they were no match for the 2018 League Leaders’ Shield winners, who regained pole position a third of the way through the season.
“We got dominated in a lot of areas,” Price said. “Credit goes to St Helens, who ran harder and tackled hard and wanted it more.”
Warrington led 6-2 thanks to Blake Austin’s early try but conceded two tries while prop Mike Cooper was in the sin bin for a high tackle on Danny Richardson and never recovered from a 20-6 interval deficit.
Saints, who were coming off the back of a surprising first defeat of the season at the hands of Catalans Dragons, took full advantage of Cooper’s yellow card, running in tries through Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Jonny Lomax on their return to the side.
Warrington staged a brief rally, with hooker Daryl Clark scoring a try early in the second half, but Saints killed the game off with a spectacular long-range try from winger Regan Grace and added others through Tom Makinson and Matty Lees to add polish to an impressive performance.
Saints coach Justin Holbrook said: “I thought that was as good as we’ve played and we had to be. We were well aware of how big a game it was tonight so it’s really pleasing.”
Elsewhere, Chris Chester hit out at Wigan’s “naughty” tactics after Wakefield lost four players to injury in their 30-20 victory over the struggling Super League champions.
The result moved Trinity level on points with third-placed Castleford but it came at a cost as a succession of key players hobbled off.
“I’ve not really had chance to speak to the physio but Jacob Miller doesn’t look great, Anthony England was a clash of knees, Reece Lyne another knee and Kyle Wood ankle,” said Chester.
“It was a crazy game and a lot of naughty stuff went on tonight which I think should have been penalised.
“Reece Lyne’s knee could have been avoided and there were a couple of other challenges where the players attacked the knee. The sooner we eradicate that from the game the better. That was just ridiculous.
“We’ve lost four blokes. It’s a tough one and kind of takes the gloss off the result.
“The fighting spirit we showed tonight was unbelievable. For David Fifita to do 80 minutes is an unbelievable effort.”
The game came to life in the closing stages of the first half as Wakefield blitzed Wigan with three tries in four minutes through Craig Kopczak, Joe Arundel and Max Jowitt.
Ben Jones-Bishop ended his long wait for his first try of 2019 and then added a second to finish the Warriors off in a milestone match for Chester.
While Trinity made it three wins in a row, injury-hit Wigan were left to reflect on a seventh defeat of a wretched title defence.
The Warriors are only two points above bottom spot but head coach Adrian Lam is confident they can make a late charge for the play-offs once the injured troops return.
“It was frustrating,” said Lam. “With the side we had we competed well for 35 minutes then four or five minutes of mayhem turned the whole game.”
