Warrington Wolves bag bitter victory over Wildcats with a long injury list
The Warrington Wolves had bagged a massive win of 66-12 over the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats on Sunday, August 14.
However, this win was soured by the long list of players who went injured during the clash, leaving only 13 by the end of the clash.
Tony Smith, the head coach of the Wolves had also arranged for the inspirational session with Roy Keane who is the Manchester United and Republic of Ireland football legend, on Friday, just ahead of the match which had left question mark of many of the players’
inclusion for the upcoming clashes of Wolves.
With major players on board ruled out, the availability of Ben Westwood, Brett Hodgson, Simon Grix and Rhys Evans for the clash against the Catalan Dragons in Perpignan, next Saturday, cannot be ensured.
Although the Wolves, had managed to march out of the Sunday’s clash victorious but it surely cost them heavily in terms of some major players going injured.
Westwood injured his knee ligament and Grix strained his groin. Hodgson was on field only for a very short spell of time as his quad was sprained. To add to the injuries, Evans has broken his foot bones, which was again a big injury.
While explaining the injury of all, Tony Smith, the head coach of Wolves added, “A lot of our players played a lot more game time than we planned and hoped for. We were down to one remaining substitute at half time and for the last 17 minutes we didn’t have
any. I think I only used five substitutes (of the permitted 12) in total.”
Due to the injury-prone clash, many of the players were made to play for the much longer stint than they were originally planned for before the game unveiled the injuries. Of all the substitutes available all but one were already used up by the half-time
and all were entirely used up before the remaining 17 minutes of the clash.
Chris Bridge came in as a replacement to the Hodgson, after his match ending injury. Bridge was the highlight of the clash as he had converted 10 out of the total 11 conversions made by the Wolves. He proved his mettle as a skilled goal kicker who filled
up for the void created by Hodgson, who had to depart the field very early in the game.
Three tries were scored by Ryan Atkins, who was playing against his former club, and showed no hint of sympathy for his ex-club mates.
For the Saturday's clash in France at the Gilbert Brutus Stadium, Lee Briers, Chris Riley, Matty Bly and Rhys Williams are expected to be part of the final line up of the Wolves.
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