It was never anything but a clear Leigh victory on offer in a game that was all about confidence – or the lack of it – when the Centurions entertained Warrington at Leigh Sports Village.
The hosts ran out 22-8 victors, and climbed to fourth in the table, with victory in the opening match of Super League round 5 against a Wolves team clearly lacking belief despite featuring in both last season’s finals and convincingly beating Brisbane Broncos in the World Club Series just weeks ago.
The team in cherry and white, on the other hand, were clearly confident in their own ability, both in attack and in an impressive defence.
Gareth Hock opened the scoring just six minutes in finding the line despite the attentions of three tacklers, with Ben Reynolds converting for a 6-0 score.
And on 20 minutes, Wolves’ failure to secure a loose ball gave on-loan centre Ben Crookes a chance to hack through and touch the ball down to give the Centurions a 10-point cushion.
Reynolds missed the conversion, but kicked a later penalty, matched by a Warrington two-pointer – courtesy of Kirk Gidley – on the hooter for a 12-2 half-time score.
A scrappy second half saw players from both teams sin-binned in separate incidents – one of which led to Warrington’s talismanic half-back signing Kevin Brown leaving the field after being knocked out and playing no further part in the contest.
But even when a man up, Warrington couldn't make the difference count – even though Tom Lineham briefly raised their hopes with a try, converted by youngster Harvey Livett.
But unconverted tries for Leigh by Hock and Adam Higson, and another late penalty goal from Reynolds, saw Leigh secure the two points.
The Centurions have clearly learned their lesson after the opening -day defeat at Castleford and are clearly growing into the Super League place they won in last year's Middle 8s.
Warrington, though, look increasingly in danger of repeating Leeds’s 2016 experience and need to rediscover the confidence that took them to last year's finals … or face the real possibility of playing for their own Super League place in this year's Middle 8 competition.
