Sunday 2nd September 2012, 15:00 - Round:26

Warrington Wolves served up a 10-try show to prove there was no hangover from their Wembley celebrations against Huddersfield Giants.

The end result may have been a resounding one, but the Wolves did not have matters all their way until just before half-time when they were level 6-6.

Brett Hodgson followed up his man-of-the-match performance in the Carnegie Challenge Cup final win over Leeds Rhinos with another impressive display against his old club.

Hodgson scored a try, helped set up three others and also kicked seven goals with a hat-trick from Joel Monaghan.

Warrington were missing Ben Westwood with a knee injury and Tyrone McCarthy, Chris Riley and Lee Briers after their third Challenge Cup win out of four.

As a result, Chris Bridge, Rhys Williams, Simon Grix and Matty Blythe were recalled by boss Tony Smith against his old club.

Riley, the Wolves 25-try leading scorer, lost his ever-present record this season – just one touchdown short of 100 in his career.

Huddersfield went into the clash knowing one win from their last two games would guarantee a play-off spot for the fifth year in a row.

But the Giants were handicapped by the absence of Danny Brough, Luke O’Donnell, Luke George, Jermaine McGillvary and David Faiumu, with Matt Dawson making his debut on the wing facing Monaghan.

Huddersfield made a promising start with Leroy Cudjoe held up over the line.

Keith Mason was fired up in the Huddersfield pack and it was a sloppy opening by Warrington, who made several handling errors.

But the Wolves went ahead after 17 minutes with a surging run from Chris Hill allowing Monaghan to collect Stefan Ratchford’s well-flighted kick to score in the corner and Hodgson booted the touchline conversion.

Dawson had a chance to cap his first appearance with a try but failed to take a difficult pass from Greg Eden.

Another mistake by Bridge let Huddersfield off the hook and a Scott Grix burst almost brought a try for the Giants.

A Grix 40-20 pegged Warrington back and the Huddersfield stand-off then bamboozled Paul Wood with an outrageous dummy and converted his own try to level the scores 6-6 after half an hour.

But Warrington finally put their best handling move together after 33 minutes with Richie Myler, Ratchford and Hodgson combining to put Bridge over to make it 10-6.

Then Myler’s kick rebounded off the post to allow Ratchford to cross with Hodgson adding the conversion to stretch the lead to 16-6 at the interval.

Warrington substituted head-bandaged Michael Monaghan after another heavy knock but bagged their fourth try with a sizzling move.

Hodgson burst onto a pass from Wood for Ratchford to send Myler on an angled run to the line after 51 minutes to stretch the advantage to 22-6.

Then Hodgson went over to make it 28-6 before supplying the final pass for Williams to cross.

Atkins added to Huddersfield’s woes with a seventh try with Bridge putting Joel Monaghan over in the corner as Huddersfield fell apart.

Monaghan completed his hat-trick before Hill capped a fine display with the final try.