Warrington’s hopes of wrestling back into the Betfred Super League play-off picture drizzled out at The Jungle as hosts Castleford snapped a run of four straight defeats to record their first win under interim head coach Chris Chester.
Wins for top-six rivals Hull FC and Wakefield over the weekend had made it imperative for Sam Burgess’s side to respond but the Wolves delivered an uninspiring and error-strewn performance to fall to a 20-14 defeat.
Burgess was left infuriated by the officiating of the game. “It’s past the point of frustration. All being said I have to get it on the record, we just weren’t good enough as well,” he said.
“I’m not making excuses. Just from the neutrals’ point of view, it’s becoming a bit too much.”
Josh Simm soared over for the decisive try in the 64th minute in a move started by a crunching tackle by Jeremiah Simbiken on Marc Sneyd, and the hosts held on to deliver a solid response to last weekend’s abject defeat at crisis club Salford.
The home side proved best at adapting to the wet conditions from the start and were good value for their two-point half-time lead through tries from Deajarn Asi and the impressive George Lawler.
Despite having opened the scoring through a seventh-minute try from Sam Stone, the visitors seldom looked likely to head home with two points from a fixture of such apparent importance to the rest of their campaign.
Asi splashed through the downpour to score and set up a levelling kick for Chris Atkin, and on 18 minutes Lachlan Fitzgibbon let Asi’s low kick slide through his grasp under the posts and set up Lawler to put the hosts ahead.
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Warrington Wolves’ head coach Sam Burgess was left confused and called for things to be sorted out after the decision to not award his side a penalty try
Zac Cini’s errant pass towards Simm on the right denied Castleford the chance to go further ahead after another slip, this time from Matt Dufty, and Jake Thewlis dived in at the corner to haul the Wolves back within two on the stroke of half-time.
But Burgess’s side continued to offer negligible threat in an uneventful start to the second half, with the scoreboard not troubled further until Atkin – who would contribute a faultless four kicks from four – converted a penalty to nudge Castleford four points clear on the hour mark.
Bolstered by a solid rearguard that was almost unrecognisable to the one that proved so porous at Salford last week, the Tigers stepped it up and went further clear with the move of the match four minutes later.
Simbiken’s tackle forced a spill from Sneyd, and Cini zoomed over halfway before sending Simm over for his side’s conclusive third.
Atkin’s kick stretched his side’s lead to 10 and Burgess was incensed that his side were denied a late penalty try following Alex Mellor’s high hit on Josh Thewlis, which allowed him to hold up the winger over the line.
“It’s becoming very common, the poor decisions,” said Burgess, whose side did subsequently score through Stefan Ratchford on a repeat set after the resulting penalty but left themselves too much to do.
Burgess added: “I’m really struggling to understand that call, so I’ll ask for clarity [from referees’ chief Phil Bentham] again, and I’ll probably get an email saying, ‘Yeah, we got it wrong, it should have been a penalty try. Sorry Sam.'”
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