Bank Quay Bulls "A" 54
Warrington Wolves IMBRL 16
@ Longshaw Street - 17/04/07 - Warrington District Cup

Just 72 hours after a tough home draw against Southport and Ormskirk, Warrington returned to action but this time in the Warrington District Cup.

With eight teams entering the Alliance version of the competition the Wolves were given a hard task at the quarter-final stage with a trip to Longshaw Street to face a Bank Quay side that were very much an unknown quantity.

After failing a number of fixtures in Division 5 this season the club had been removed from the North West Counties league but were allowed to take their place in the district Cup.

The Wolves arrived at Longshaw Street with a threadbare squad following the weekend's fixture and a long hard first campaign in North West Counties.

With work commitments and injuries starving the side of Nat Ashurst, Jonathan Knight, Kyle Holcroft, Matt Lawton, Mark Moore and Mick Austin it was always going to be tough and some members of the squad were only able to arrive just minutes before the 6:30pm kick-off.

However muster a team the Wolves did and during the opening exchanges the visitors held their own against a physical Bulls side who were pulled for spear tackling on two separate occasions.

Full-back Liam O'Brien opened the IMBRL account following one of those infringements to give the visitors a 0-2 lead.

The Bulls responded with a converted try before IMBRL drew level as strong running Gareth Edwards charged in out wide.

Bank Quay hit the front once again to make it 10-6 in a game that they were beginning to dominate particularly territorially as the Wolves only made sporadic appearances in the home side’s forty metre zone.

Eventually the defensive effort took its toll as the Bulls raced in for two converted tries in the final moments of the first-half to make the interval score 22-6.

Wolves vowed to make the job a more respectable one in the second forty minutes but with their sideline looking like a war zone it was always going to be a tough ask.

As it was the Bulls went onto register a comprehensive victory with the extra power proving the difference but IMBRL were not disgraced by any means after scoring two well worked tries of their own from Stephen Lenihan and Captain for the evening Neil Ashurst.

On a tiring night for the Wolves man of the match as voted for by the visitors was once again Jawaad Adonis whilst debutant loose-forward and Priestley College player Tom Ratcliffe also caught the eye as he became the club's thirty-nineth player to pull on a shirt this season.

Tom Mahoney, Gareth Edwards and Paul Arnison also led the fight on a night when a lot was learnt by the busted up Wolves.

Wolves: Liam O'Brien, Andy Mahoney, Stephen Lenihan, Gareth Edwards, Tom Mahoney, Andy Hawley, Karl Case, John Williams, Danny Elliott, Jawaad Adonis, Neil Ashurst, Rick Lenihan, Tom Ratcliffe. Subs: Dave Heathwood, Jon Westwood, Steve Brown, Paul Arnison.
Tries: Edwards, S. Lenihan, Ashurst
Goals: O'Brien, Hawley