Wonderful Wizards
8:16pm Thursday 1st May 2008
Featherstone Lions 22 Warrington Wizards 50.
WARRINGTON Wizards produced one of the best performances in their three-year history to outclass reigning Conference National champions Featherstone Lions on their own patch on Saturday.
Wizards, who are not in action this weekend and host East Lancashire Lions in their next match at Wilderspool on May 9 at 8pm, ran in 11 tries and would have won by an even bigger margin had they not missed eight of their conversions.
Featherstone did take the lead with an early converted try but Wizards joint player coach Chris Mellor put man of the match Jono Smith over soon afterwards and the visitors crossed again when former Warrington Wolves player Alan Reddecliff scored on his debut.
Matt Taylor then dummied his way over but another Featherstone converted effort levelled the scores before Warren Ayres converted Stuart Pirrie's try.
Featherstone scored again to only trail 18-16 at half time but Mellor and Ian Stephenson scored converted tries early in the second period before the hosts had a man sent off.
Billy Sheen then touched down for Wizards, while Taylor and Smith claimed their second tries of the match before Danny Shaw crossed and Reddecliff scored his second to bring up the half century.
Mellor said: "That was one of our best ever performances.
"All 17 players did what we asked of them and it paid off handsomely.
"We dug deep in the first half and ground out a narrow advantage, but then in the second half we really turned the screw and played some exciting attacking rugby.
"To score 11 tries at the home of the defending champions is no mean feat and hopefully we can continue in the same vein next time out."
Fellow joint player boss Matt Wilson, who is likely to be out for four weeks after breaking two ribs during the match, added: "It was great to be part of such a team effort. We know that we have plenty of talent in our squad and we went out and proved it.
"We have worked really hard in training over the past fortnight and the results of that were there for all to see."
Wizards: David Yii; Ian Stephenson, Danny Shaw, Matt Wilson, Stuart Pirrie; Chris Mellor, Warren Ayres; Scott Davidson, Steven Smythe, Simon Mcevoy, Jono Smith, Matt Taylor, Alan Reddecliff. Subs: Billy Sheen, Andy Addison, Anthony Beckett, Gary Hewitt.