NATURALLY, this anomaly of a scoreline needs to be placed into some kind of context.
Barring a couple, this was as strong a Warrington Wolves side as Sam Burgess could name faced with a threadbare Huddersfield Giants squad that had nothing other than pride to play for, and it showed.
Anything other than a convincing Wire win would have been a huge surprise but even so, to score 66 points without reply takes some doing.
The teams they will face in what remains of their 2024 season will throw much more at them than the Giants did but as the old saying goes, “you can only beat what is put in front of you.”
And beat them they did with the kind of efficiency and ruthlessness that augurs well for the season-defining games to come.
Whether they end up finishing second or – as appears more likely – third, the run-in to the end of the regular season had to be about fine-tuning and making sure they were in prime shape for the play-offs.
Albeit in a game that ended up being more like an opposed training session than a full-blooded Super League encounter, they showed signs that they were as they moved effortlessly through the gears without really needing to get into overdrive.
New ways of opening up an opposition were being experimented with – there appeared to be more emphasis on the middle of the field, with Ben Currie’s supreme ball-handling to the fore at loose forward.
With so much on the line and in generally poor weather, the play-offs do not tend to be the time for expansive play – at least not without earning the right – so showing an aptitude for keeping their passing short and sharp can only serve them well.
Though nothing remotely resembling sustained pressure came their way without the ball, Burgess will be delighted too with the clean sheet, meaning they have now gone two full games without conceding a try.
Indeed, the closest Huddersfield came was a Jake Bibby interception in the game’s final seconds and even that spawned another satisfying moment as, even with the game long since won, Cai Taylor-Wray showed the defensive desperation that takes teams deep into seasons to chase back and haul him down.
At the other end, their work was done in a manner that all but eradicated a points difference advantage that effectively put Hull KR another point in front of them in the top-two running.
They are still odds-against to overhaul the Robins, but they have done to at least keep them honest in the final round on a night where nothing really went wrong.
No injuries, no immediate disciplinary worries and no real over-exertion from anybody with key bodies still to come back in – the Warrington machine is chugging along nicely.
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