Super League: Warrington 34-10 Castleford - Daryl Powell enjoys victory over former club

Josh Charnley enjoyed a landmark evening, scoring his 250th career try in his 100th Wire game

Coach Daryl Powell enjoyed a winning reunion with old club Castleford after a dominant display by his Warrington Wolves side in his first home game.

Cas did find a response from Derrell Olpherts, before Josh Charnley and Rob Mulhern tries restored Wire's control.

Ex-Tiger Peter Mata'utia punished an error to score, Jake Trueman gave Cas hope but Charnley's second capped it.

Powell spoke before the game about taking the emotion out of the encounter with the club where he spent the last eight years, and his players did a job ruthlessly to secure a big win.

Even without the direction of hooker Daryl Clark, the Wire spine was impressive; halves Williams and Gareth Widdop deployed the short kicking game to devastating effect to build pressure, and with Stefan Ratchford also chiming in, they had too much creativity for Cas to hold out.

Ashton's score was an intercept and Mata'utia's came from an error, but the others were wonderfully created by crisp handling and precise execution which stripped Cas for numbers.

It was a special night for Charnley in particular, scoring twice to exceed 250 career tries in all competitions, on his 100th Warrington appearance.

For the man who stepped into Powell's shoes at Castleford, former Hull boss Lee Radford, this was a second defeat at the start of the new campaign in which he is trying to establish a new era.

His pack had the physical dominance over Warrington in big forwards such as George Griffin and Liam Watts, but it was the smaller, more mobile Wolves who had the better of it.

Niall Evalds showed touches of class, but the halves pairing of Gareth O'Brien and Trueman were unable to make the same impact of their opposite numbers.

Olpherts finished well for his try, but the penalty count really cost Cas and all too often allowed the home side to take control of affairs.

Injuries to Alex Sutcliffe and Kenny Edwards are further blows to a side already without the experience of Adam Milner and Nathan Massey.

Warrington head coach Daryl Powell told BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra:

"On the points board you only get two points for a win in each game, I thought we were a bit fortunate last week, but today I thought it was a really good performance after a bit of a shaky start.

"I thought we defended well, we built the second half really well and there was some outstanding play from the boys there.

"Last week we were nervous, and this week we were excited, which is two very different leads into a game, we started a bit loose defensively but we grabbed it back and our work from the inside was awesome, and our middle unit turned up in spades."

Castleford head coach Lee Radford told BBC Radio Leeds:

"The intent, contact dominance and line-speed we asked for we got in abundance and I was hoping in that armwrestle you get rewards at the back end of the game.

"But when you lose the penalty count 10-4 or 10-3, and have one back-to-back set to three, it bites you.

"We ran out of gas with the amount of defending we had to do and the last tackle plays were poor."

Warrington: Ratchford; Charnley, Mata'utia, King, Ashton; Widdop, Williams; Philbin, Walker, Mulhern, Currie, Longstaff, J. Clark.

Interchanges: Hughes, Bullock, Davis, Thewlis.

Castleford: Evalds; Olpherts, Fonua, Mamo, Faraimo; Trueman, O'Brien; Lawler, McShane, Smith, Sutcliffe, Edwards, Westerman.

Interchanges: Watts, Griffin, Turner, Blair.

Referee: James Child (RFL).

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