Penrith punish rusty Roosters
3 hours ago | Aidan Edgecomb
So after week 2 of the play-offs just four teams remain on the road to Old Trafford.
Warrington Wolves wore down Castleford Tigers and Catalan Dragons grounded out another impressive win at the Huddersfield.
St Helens who were the highest place qualifiers for the Semi-Finals had the "Club Call" option and they picked Catalan Dragons as their opponents.
By doing this they setup a mouth-watering game at the D.W. Stadium as Wigan will entertain Warrington Wolves in a repeat of last year's Grand Final.
Castleford Tigers 14
Tries: Ellis, Dorn, Shenton
Goals: Sneyd
Warrington Wolves 30
Tries: Atkins, J. Monaghan 2, O'Brien, Evans
Goals: Ratchford 5
Att: 6,219
Warrington Wolves moved one step away from a third successive Grand Final by claiming a hard-fought win over Castleford Tigers at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle.
This was last chance saloon for both Castleford, who lost in the Challenge Cup final and narrowly failed in their bid for the League Leaders' Shield and Warrington despite finishing fifth fancied their chances of getting one step closer to another visit to Old Trafford.
And it was Warrington who got the early break as Ben Harrison charged down Jamie Ellis' attempted clearance kick and centre Ryan Atkins collected the ricochet to sprint over from 40 metres out after just four minutes.
Stefan Ratchford landed the conversion as the Tigers struggled to get into the game but after 23 minutes a high kick was palmed back by James Clare and Ellis was on to hand to touchdown.
Marc Sneyd missed his conversion attempt and another fumble on halfway gave Warrington the position from which they scored their second try, with Joel Monaghan taking Chris Bridge's pass to score out wide as the Cheshire side led 10-4 at the break.
Ratchford added a penalty on 52-minutes and three minutes later, Castleford put together a superb move which resulted in Luke Dorn slicing through a hole in the visitors' defence to touch down and Sneyd added the extras as the game was up for grabs
However, the Wolves upped the tempo and blew Cas away with a three try burst in ten minutes. Ratchford superb pass out of the tackle sent Richard Myler into space and his half-back partner Gareth O'Brien was in support to touch down.
Rhys Evans produced a superb pick-up to collect Ratchford's pass and score his side's fourth try with Monaghan making it a double as Warrington killed off the game.
Evans was sin-binned for a professional foul and Castleford made the extra man count by working skipper Michael Shenton over for a consolation try as the Tigers bowed out.
Huddersfield Giants 16
Tries: Broughton, Murphy, Robinson
Goals: Brough 3
Catalan Dragons 18
Tries: Millard, Oldfield, Pomeroy
Goals: Bosc 3
Att: 6.900
Seventh place Catalan Dragons edged past Huddersfield Giants in a tough game at the John Smith's Stadium to go within 80-minutes of the Grand Final.
The French side were full of confidence as they came into this one on the back of their shock win at Leeds and they faced a Giants side looking to restore pride after a humiliating defeat at Wigan.
For the opening 15 minutes the game was played in semi darkness after electrical trouble on one side of the ground wiped out half the floodlights.
Huddersfield winger Jodie Broughton pulling off a try-saving tackle on his opposite number Michael Oldfield before opening the scoring at the other.
It did not take long for the Frenchside to get into their stride and they took the lead after good work by Oldfield gave them the position for centre Vincent Duport to get his winger Daryl Millard over for the visitors' first try on 12 minutes.
Second-rower Elliott Whitehead then sent Oldfield away as the former Roosters winger dived over the line. Thomas Bosc added the touchline conversion to make it 10-4.
On 26 minutes the game was all squarer as hooker Shaun Lunt sent Joe Wardle into a gap and Aaron Murphy was in support to score near the posts.
Brough added the extras as the teams went into the break locked at 10-10.
Just after the resumption Huddersfield thought they had regained the lead when Broughton went 90 metres after collecting a kick, but the try was chalked off for an obstruction and it was the Catalans who went back in front courtesy of Bosc's penalty.
But on the hour mark, the Giants edged ahead when scrum-half Luke Robinson chased Brough's perfectly weighted kick and touched down near the dead ball line with centimetres to spare. Brough's second goal made it 16-12.
However, in a late twist Bosc's high kick to the corner was palmed back by Whitehead and on hand was Ben Pomeroy to touch down.
Bosc kicked the difficult conversion and the Dragons held on for the win as there remarkable run continues.