Super League: Warrington Wolves 48-10 Castleford Tigers

Warrington's Chris Bridge scored 10 points before going off injured

Warrington moved up to fourth in Super League with victory over Castleford.

The Tigers came into the game after their Challenge Cup semi-final win over Widnes and found themselves 18-0 behind after tries from Ryan Atkins, Gareth O'Brien and Chris Bridge.

The visitors got off the mark just before the break through James Clare and Oliver Holmes added their second.

But tries from Rhys Evans (2), Anthony England, Stefan Ratchford and Joel Monaghan sealed the win for the Wolves.

With one eye on next weekend's Wembley final, Tigers coach Daryl Powell rested six first-team players and Warrington took full advantage.

Despite a dominant first quarter from Castleford, the hosts struck twice on the counter-attack, as Atkins took advantage of a kind bounce to go over and O'Brien added a second after a long-range break by Michael Monaghan.

Bridge then crashed through the defence and kicked his third conversion before being taken off with a potential hamstring tear, which will be scanned in the coming days.

The Tigers dusted themselves down and pulled back a try when Clare landed a one-handed finish in the corner, to make it 18-4 at the break.

Holmes reduced the deficit further as he barged his way through a solid-looking defence, and Liam Finn added the conversion.

But the Wolves woke up and ran in 30 unanswered points to make sure of fourth position.

Evans received Simon Grix's pass to cross at the corner for the first of his two tries and prop England charged onto Mick Higham's short lay-off to crash over.

Ratchford took over Bridge's kicking duties and kept up Warrington's 100% conversion rate, before crossing with his own try.

Monaghan and Evans both went over in the last seven minutes and Ratchford took his goal tally to five.

Warrington coach Tony Smith: "We certainly got an improvement but there are some aspects I'm still not too happy with.

"We had to do way too much defence in the first half.

"But there was some good play as well and I thought our defence was pretty good.

"Last week our half-backs didn't control the play enough so we tried a different combination.

"We have a lot of fresh bodies at the moment and lot of people vying for positions."

Castleford coach Daryl Powell: "It's a little bit disappointing.

"We were a bit unlucky with the scoreline, I don't think that was a fair reflection.

"We put a team out there that I thought should have competed a little bit better.

"But there were some good bits out there and to see those two young kids out there having a pop was great. I thought Brad Day did really well and big Will Maher will learn a lot from that.

"I think we had to be sensible with team selection, I never like losing, to be honest, particularly not in that manner, but sometimes you've got to cop a whack on the chin to get the bigger prize."

Friday's line-ups

Warrington: Russell, R. Evans, C. Bridge, Atkins, J. Monaghan, Ratchford, O'Brien, Hill, M. Monaghan, Harrison, Waterhouse, Westwood, Grix.

Replacements: Higham for C. Bridge (26), England for Hill (35), Wood for Harrison (20), Laithwaite for Westwood (20).

Castleford: Reynolds, Tansey, Channing, Gibson, Clare, Ellis, Finn, Lynch, Milner, Wheeldon, Mariano, Hauraki, Jewitt.

Replacements: Massey for Lynch (22), Holmes for Wheeldon (30).

Substitutes: Day, Maher.

Att: 8,391

Ref: James Child (RFL).