Warrington Wolves u19 22 Wigan Warriors u19 24

WIGAN Warriors managed to hang on and grab a narrow Academy Grand Final victory despite a sensational second half fightback from the valiant Warrington Wolves in front of 1,550 supporters at The Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday.

The visitors deservedly built up a commanding interval advantage but table-tioppers Wolves refused to lie down and they produced a sterling effort after the break but ultimately were unable to snatch the win that their performance warranted.

Warriors opened the scoring in the fifth minute when a repeat set close to the Wolves line paid off as the ball was sent out wide to winger Lewis Tierney who scored in the right corner and when the kick off went dead the resulting penalty put the Warriors deep in the Wolves half and centre Oliver Gildart scored wide out on the left.

Wigan continued to dominate territorially and midway through the half they passed the ball along the line which stretched the Wolves defence and winger Liam Marshall raced thirty metres down the left to score in the corner.

Full back Ryan Hampshire converted and then on the half hour slick passing created a gap for substitute Bradley Lawrence to exploit and he scored at the side of the posts.

Right on the stroke of half time the Wolves gave themselves a lifeline when good work from full back Jack Johnson saw him find centre Toby King and he passed on to stand off Declan Patton who put second row Joe Philbin over wide on the left to make the interval score 18-4 in Wigan’s favour.

Two minutes into the second half the Warriors went over for their fifth try when Tierney raced thirty metres down the right to score in the corner.

Hampshire goaled from the touchline but then from the restart Toby King managed to collect the ball and as they got close to the Wigan line substitute Ryan Maneely found Patton whose bullet pass found Joe Philbin at speed and he stormed over on the left. Centre Harvey Livett added the conversion.

Just after the hour mark the Wolves really got themselves back into contention when a clever high chip into the in-goal area by Patton was collected superbly by Joe Philbin who went over to complete his hat trick.

Livett converted and then eight minutes from time a kick by Patton on the last tackle was collected by Toby King and he managed to keep the ball alive and find Johnson whose cross field run saw him evade three defenders to score wide out on the right.

Livett added the conversion to narrow the deficit to just two points and then as the Wolves pounded the Wigan line in the closing moments prop forward George King was held agonisingly close to the line and it was the Warriors who were left to celebrate a very hard fought 24-22 success.

WOLVES: Jack Johnson; Jake Eccleston, Harvey Livett, Toby King, Declan Kay; Declan Patton, Louis Jouffret; Daniel Murray, Sean Kenny, George King, Joe Philbin, Sam Wilde, Tom Walker. Subs: Morgan Nicholas, Andy Philbin, James Jones, Ryan Maneely.

WARRIORS: Ryan Hampshire; Liam Marshall, Oliver Gildart, Jack Higginson, Lewis Tierney; Jamie Doran, Jake Shorrocks; Ben Austin, Callum Wright, Rob Lever, Grant Beecham, Nick Gregson, Kyle Shelford. Subs: Luke Waterworth, Bradley Lawrence, Kieron Sherratt, Macauley Davies.