The Super League XXIX playoffs continue on Saturday evening when we find out who the last of the semi-finalists will be as the race to Old Trafford continues at the Halliwell Jones Stadium where the Warrington Wolves host St Helens.
These two sides have played out plenty of battles in their history and there is no reason to think things will be different here. With what is at stake this should be a competitive encounter with the season ending for the losers.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the BBC 2 and Sky Sports+ channels with the build-up beginning at 5pm ahead of the 5.30pm kick off.
Warrington Wolves
The Warrington Wolves have been one of the better teams in the Super League this season but now they face that age old problem of having to put what has gone behind them and ensure that they perform to their best and come out on top in a match which has all the marbles on it. They reached the Challenge Cup final earlier in the season which has to be a positive for their hopes but they didn’t really perform at Wembley so it will be interesting to see what they have learned from that.
The Wolves have been one of the better attacking teams to watch all season but if there has been a criticism of them it is that when they have gone behind in matches they sometimes look like they run out of a few ideas and they won’t be able to afford that in this one. Warrington will have to defend well because their opposition are well versed in playing playoff football and peaking for when this time of the season comes around.
St Helens
This hasn’t been a particularly good campaign for St Helens so far but I guess the beauty of the competition from their point of view is that none of that matters now and if they can find their very best for three successive weeks they could still come away from a relatively poor year by their standards with the Super League trophy under their belt. They will certainly need their best rugby here but they are a champion club who thrive at this time of the year.
To be fair to the Saints, injuries haven’t helped them at various different points in this season so it has to be a positive that their squad doesn’t look too weak for this knockout clash. One issue the Saints will need to overcome is a poor recent record on the road. They have lost three of their last four matches including a 16-2 defeat on this ground three weeks ago so they are going to need to come together and use all of their playoff nous to get through this one.
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Team News
Sam Burgess has Paul Vaughan, Rodrick Tai and Joe Philbin back for this quarter final. The former has served his suspension while the latter two have recovered from knocks to take place in a side who haven’t conceded a point in their last two outings.
Paul Wellens has made one change to the squad which lost to the Leigh Leopards last weekend. Moses Mbye picked up a calf injury in the warm-up ahead of that game and misses out. Jonny Vaughan comes in for him.
Betting
Warrington Wolves have won all three meetings between these two sides if you include the Challenge Cup match between the two but they will know that they are probably going to get a much stronger challenge here because the stakes are so high. St Helens have most of their key players available for this match which will give them a boost and if they can start well and get their noses in front the whole world knows that there is a fragility about Warrington in big matches.
I’m not convinced St Helens have the 80 minute intensity to get the job done here but they are past masters at hanging in games and waiting for their chance to come and making the most of it when it does. I’m not expecting a high scoring match here so I do think that the 8.5 points that St Helens are getting on the handicap might just be a couple of points too big. This isn’t a match where Warrington need to run up the score and they are not seasoned in winning playoff matches so even if they are in front late on things could still get nervy. I like Saints on the cap.
Tips
Back St Helens (+8.5) to beat Warrington Wolves for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Coral
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