Broughton Park 35 Warrington 10
Warrington travelled to their bogey ground in Chorlton for the first time in two years And once again they returned to Walton Lea Road with no points to show for their efforts, as they were well beaten by a well-drilled, physical Broughton Park outfit. The loss sees Warrington drop to tenth in the North 1 West league, while a resurgent Park now move above them into ninth.
It didn’t take long for the home side to get the electronic scoreboard ticking over. After five minutes, a pin-point grubber kick from their talented stand-off was pounced on over the line by their right wing and Broughton were five points ahead. The sides then exchanged penalties before Warrington suffered the loss of their iconic skipper, Josh Downes, with a head injury. Broughton themn went further ahead when a speculative high kick was misfielded by Warrington was dutifully punished with a try and the conversion took Park into a 15-3 lead.
Ten minutes later, Park went further ahead when they took advantage of the referee’s confusion with a quick tap penalty five yards out and their heavyweight pack crashed over under the post to give their kicker a simple conversion. Warrington looked to be cutting the deficit when a beautiful floated pass from Tom Wood found Nathan Beasley in space and the speedster kicked ahead and seemed to be heading for a touchdown when the referee, rightly, stopped play because of a serious leg injury to a Park forward. The game was then halted for 50 minutes to wait for an ambulance and, hopefully, he will make a good recovery. When the teams returned to play out the remaining ten minutes of the first half, it was, surprisingly, Warrington who seemed to have adjusted better and a lovely break from Kieron Hughes, followed by a delicate chip, saw Nathan Beasley touch down under the post and then convert his try so that the sides turned round with the score 22-10 to Park.
Because of the gathering gloom, the whole of the second half was played under floodlights. Unfortunately with the lights switched on, Warrington seemed to have switched off. They could find no answer to Park’s rushing defence, although this constantly flirted with the offside line. As a result, they were unable to generate any real forward momentum so that they were held almost totally in their own half. Park took advantage by kicking a second penalty and then increased their lead when their left centre sidestepped over to allow an easy conversion. A third Park penalty completed the scoring, although Warrington did have a chance of a consolation try when Jack Hannon slipped through a gap but failed to see Kieron Hughes on his shoulder.
“We were well beaten today,” conceded coach Andy Roberts. “We were out of sorts from the start and failed to compete in many areas. Hopefully, we can rediscover our mojo for the four home games ahead.”
