The Super 8 portion of the Super League season begins on Thursday night and it does so with one of the great match ups as Warrington Wolves host St Helens as the race for the playoffs really begins to intensify.
Warrington will go top of the table overnight if they can pick up a win here while St Helens will put a four point buffer between them and Catalans should they win and also close in on those above them to give them an outside chance of the leaders shield.
Warrington Wolves
The Wolves’ confidence must be sky high at the minute and morale really good after they destroyed Wakefield last week to make it back to Wembley in the Challenge Cup final. One of their issues now is maintaining focus and intensity in this competition while they wait for Wembley to come around but they’ve been there before so that shouldn’t be a huge issue.
That win last week was Warrington’s fourth in a row so they go into this match in excellent form and that is never a bad thing. Another win here would go a long way to securing their playoff spot and allowing them to focus their attentions on the big matches to come.
St Helens
Saints are in even better form than Warrington right now. They have won their last five matches and have had the luxury of the week off last week to get some energy back into the legs and assess where they want to target going into the next seven matches.
St Helens’ win over Wigan in the derby two weeks ago will have been especially pleasing and after not really finding any consistency at the beginning of the season they certainly have some now. They head to Warrington knowing they have a very good record over them down the years too.
Team News
Kurt Gidley is an injury doubt for the Wolves which is less than ideal. Ryan Bailey misses out with a knee issue so Sam Wilde and Joe Philbin come into the squad. Dec Patton is around as cover if Gidley isn’t passed fit.
St Helens have brought Dominique Peyroux into their squad for this match. He replaces Shannon McDonnell in the 19 man squad. Saints are at full strength in their spine of their side which is important.
Betting
Warrington are the odds on favourites for this match but if Kurt Gidley doesn’t make it that changes straight away for me. In fairness St Helens are nothing like a forlorn hope even if the Australian does play and there are a couple of things they have on their side here.
First of all Saints had their feet up last week while Warrington were in the Challenge Cup semi and while they weren’t exactly pushed too hard in that match it was on Saturday so they’ve only had four days to rest up and recover for this match whereas Saints have been able to prepare for this game for almost two weeks. That could well be significant.
The other thing in their favour is their excellent historical record over Warrington through the years and we saw signs of that when these two met at the Halliwell Jones earlier this season. Whenever St Helens play Warrington here there seems to be a clear belief they are going to win and almost a resignation from Warrington that will be the case too.
Head to head records rarely interest me too much in this ever changing world so I’m not basing a bet on that but the extra time off St Helens have had at this stage of a hard season very much is of interest and with that in mind I’ll go with the visitors at a tidy price here.
Tips
WON – Back St Helens to beat Warrington for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Paddy Power
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