Huddersfield Giants 26 Warrington Wolves 20 (From Warrington Guardian)

Huddersfield Giants 26 Warrington Wolves 20

WARRINGTON Wolves blew a 10-0 lead and ran out of time to rescue a draw in a controversial finale at Huddersfield Giants on Sunday.

Giants' two game-clinching tries came in the final nine minutes, the first in Henry Fa'afili's corner after the Kiwi winger had been injured a few tackles earlier during a collision with Hudderfield water carrier Ben Cooper.

Chris Nero's try was followed five minutes later by a home debut 50-metre effort by Stephen Wild that handed Giants a 26-16 lead.

Wolves won the ball from a short restart and Toa Kohe-Love's jinking run was finished off with Martin Gleeson putting Fa'afili over by the corner flag.

There was not enough time to mount another serious surge towards the Huddersfield line as the game ended 26-20.

Impressive scrum half Chris Bridge had got on the end of a Lee Briers grubber to steer Wolves into a third-minute lead, with Bridge's long pass and Toa Kohe-Love's quick hands then setting Richie Barnett free on his Wolves debut to extend the lead in the seventh minute.

After stacking up the pressure, two grubber kicks by Chris Thorman brought tries for Albert Torrens and Nero to level things up by half time.

Wild popped a pass out of a tackle for Martin Aspinwall to put Huddersfield ahead in the 52nd minute but Wolves replied when Bridge changed direction and side-stepped his way over with 13 minutes left.

Huddersfield had the final say but Wolves chief Paul Cullen made an official complaint to the Rugby Football League about the circumstances leading up to Nero's crucial second try.

Cullen said: "For the try that broke our back, when they scored in the corner, their water carrier had run on and knocked Henry Fa'afili over and injured him, but no-one saw it. He just ran on the field, ran straight into him, knocked him on his backside and hurt him in the process.

"The match commissioner has been made aware of it and we will wait on the standard process from the RFL, not that it will change the game.

"In games like that the margins are very tight and we had a man limping in back play who had just been flattened by a water boy.

"If both ankles had been good he would have had a better chance of making the tackle. He'd just got back in the line but you're better making a tackle when you're fit as opposed to being injured by a water boy."