The Warrington Wolves defeated the Catalans Dragons 18-12 in a closely contested game at the Luke Littler Stadium last night.
The victory marks a perfect start and end to Warrington’s time in Luke Littler Stadium. The new stadium name was for one night only to honor Warrington fan and 2025 Darts World Champion Luke Littler.
What a night💛💙 a massive honour and can’t thank @warringtonrlfc enough for what they did for me. cheers everyone for the warm welcome🙏🏼 UP THE WIRE👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/zQfE0hHSCC
— Luke Littler (@LukeTheNuke180) February 22, 2025
In the first half, an early penalty saw Catalans jump out to a 2-0 lead with a penalty conversion by Arthur Mourgue.
In the 29th minute, Warrington scored the first try of the night when Catalans’ Cesar Rouge spilled a kick up in front of Toby King who gathered and grounded the ball for the try.
Josh Thewlis added the conversion to give Warrington a four-point lead.
Matthieu Laguerre leveled the scores 6-6 with an unconverted try for Catalans just before halftime.
In the second half, Warrington added two more tries to their score.
Danny Walker added the first try in the 50th minute. Matt Dufty tacked on the second in the 68th minute to give Warrington a 12-point lead.
Catalans cut Warrington’s lead in half with a second try from Laguerre with six minutes left.
Despite creating chances in the final moments, Catalans could not break through to take the game to golden point.
Catalans Coach Steve McNamara felt that his team was the better of the sides and unlucky to not have gotten the win.
McNamara said: “I thought we were the better team. Over the 80 minutes, I thought we defended extremely well. We created lots of problems with our offloads.”
“I think we won most areas of the game apart from putting points on the scoreboard and the finishing.”
Warrington Coach Sam Burgess was happy with his team’s performance and proud that they managed to secure the win in such a close game.
Burgess said: “I’m just happy that they got the reward at the end of it because in those tight games, it can go either way.”
“I was just really proud of my team’s effort. They never stopped trying, never stopped turning up for each other. We figured that out last year and I’m glad to see that they’ve carried it forward into this year.
Warrington’s next game is against the Wigan Warriors on March 1st in Las Vegas. This is the Super League’s first game in the United States and is happening alongside two fixtures from Australia’s National Rugby League, and a Women’s Ashes game.
Featured image by Jenna Murff
