Warrington 50-10 Leigh: Tom Lineham scores four tries in rout

Match stats: Warrington 50-10 Leigh

Warrington tries: Atkins (6), Sims (18), Lineham (26,33,66,76), Pomeroy (48), Hughes (69), Patton (79)
Warrington goals: Ratchford (6,11,18,26,48,69), Westwood (79) 

Leigh tries: Reynolds (39), Dawson (75)
Leigh goals: Reynolds (39)  

Match report

Tom Lineham scored four tries as Warrington kept alive their faint hopes of a top-eight finish with a comfortable Betfred Super League victory over rock-bottom Leigh.

The Wolves will still need to win their final two games against Wigan and Widnes and hope other results go their way to avoid having to fight for their Super League lives in the Middle 8s, but they gave themselves a lifeline with a 50-10 win.

Along with winger Lineham's haul, Ryan Atkins, Ashton Sims, Jack Hughes, Declan Patton and debutant Ben Pomeroy also ran in tries for Warrington with Stefan Ratchford landing six goals and Ben Westwood one conversion.

Leigh, who are already consigned to the Middle 8s, registered tries from Ben Reynolds and Matty Dawson with Reynolds landing one conversion.

Westwood returned to the Warrington side for the first time since breaking a bone in his hand in May, with Lineham and Patton also recalled to the starting line-up. Centre Pomeroy made his debut after arriving from Lezignan and there was a home debut for winger Peta Hiku after his move from Penrith.

Leigh gave a debut to scrum-half Daniel Mortimer following his signing from Cronulla and Mickey Higham and Samisoni Langi returned to the side.

It was the home side who took the lead after just five minutes when Patton's long pass gave in-form centre Atkins the space to blast through the Leigh defence from 20 metres out to score.

The Wolves were then reduced to 12 men when Westwood was given 10 minutes in the sin-bin for a dangerous tackle on Danny Tickle, but the visitors failed to take advantage of their extra man and it was Warrington who increased their lead while the second row forward was off the field with a Ratchford penalty.

Warrington claimed their second try midway through the first half when Dawson failed to deal with a Patton kick and Sims scooped up the loose ball and claimed his first try of the season.

The hosts continued their dominance in the first half and Lineham crossed for two tries in six minutes as on both occasions he collected Ratchford passes to dive over in the left-hand corner.

In the very last play of the first half the Centurions claimed their first points when Reynolds followed up his own kick which took a wicked bounce away from Ratchford, allowing the stand off to regather and score. Reynolds also tagged on the conversion to make it 24-6 at half-time.

The Centurions started the second half brightly but could not turn their territorial advantage into points as they looked to mount a comeback.

And they fell for the sucker-punch when, on their first attack after the break, the Wolves new boys linked up as Hiku sent Pomeroy over and Ratchford converted to stretch the lead to 30-6.

Lineham claimed his hat-trick try in the 66th minute, this time from close range as he burrowed his way through some tired Leigh defenders and Hughes piled on the misery for the visitors as he claimed Warrington's seventh try three minutes later.

Dawson went over for a late consolation try for Leigh but the Wolves finished with another late flurry as Lineham crashed over for his fourth try of the night and Patton also touched down in the final three minutes with Westwood's conversion completing the scoring.

Match reaction

Warrington coach Tony Smith on the performance: "It was important we played well tonight and it was a good performance for the majority of the 80 minutes. It was important to get some confidence back.

"There is still a lot of rugby league to be played this season so we want to be playing well. Sometimes confidence goes and you try too hard and things don't work out so it was important to get that confidence back.

"Across the board it was a good all-round performance and our defence was good, especially at the start of both halves which was crucial for us.

"We withstood their attack and when we had Ben Westwood in the sin bin we were under pressure but didn't crack.

"Our attack was also much improved and asked some questions and came up with some good answers. We played a bit more rugby league which was refreshing for all of us to see."

Smith on Lineham's effort: "Tom came up with four quality finishes because he had some work to do in each one of them.

"Ben Westwood was outstanding considering he hasn't played for a month or so due to a broken hand and to come back and play 70 minutes as strong as he did was super."

Leigh coach Neil Jukes on a poor display: "There are not many positives at all tonight, it was disappointing.

"We were poor from minute one, we were second best in every department which is unlike us.

"We have got to take our hat off tonight and say we were out-enthused and we weren't at the races from the kick-off. It seemed tonight the harder we tried, the worse we got.

"We know we we are in the Middle 8s and will have four away and three at home. We have been in it before and understand what's expected and we need to hit the ground running on game one and keep that consistency through to game seven."