The Wests Tigers have hung on in an absolute thriller against the New Zealand Warriors, in a match that will be considered one of the games of the season.
Josh Addo-Carr was at his blistering best, bagging a double; Jeremy Marshall-King controlled the match superbly, while Jacob Liddle was awarded the Intrust Super Premiership NSW man of the match award for his efforts.
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad was close to the player of the match despite being in a losing side, standing up in both attack and defence on multiple occasions throughout the contest.
Veiru Mapesone looked certain to score in the opening moments of the match, but a simply incredible effort by Nicoll-Klokstad prevented the seemingly inevitable try.
Down the other end of the field less than 10 minutes later, Viliami Kaveinga looked to be certain to score, but the bounce of the ball was cruel and he was not able to ground it properly.
Points were finally posted in the 13th minute of the match, when Wesley Lolo powered through the defence, was eventually brought down, but momentum allowed him to bounce over the line to score under the posts.
The bounce of the ball was shocking for the Warriors earlier, but it worked in their favour soon afterwards when Mason Lino put in a grubber, and ball went over the head of Addo-Carr – who simply had no chance to recover – and into the arms of Tomas Aoake to score.
They took the lead off the ensuing set, as Lino put in a smart grubber that sat up perfectly for Jonathan Wright to score adjacent to the posts.
The match became a stalemate for the next 10 minutes, and nothing threatened to break the game open. Enter Addo-Carr, who busted through two tackles and showed blistering speed to race away to the try-line.
Nicoll-Klokstad was questionably denied a try on the stroke of full-time, before the Wests Tigers marched up-field and kicked a penalty goal after the buzzer to take a slight 12-10 lead into the break.
The Warriors snatched the lead right back in the early stages of the second half, as Erin Clark stepped off his right foot, fooled the defence and reached over at full-stretch to plant the ball down.
The lead was short-lived however, as Marshall-King made a linebreak, and gave it to a supporting Addo-Carr on his inside to race away for his second try of the afternoon.
The Wests Tigers managed to hang on to the small lead for the rest of the match, but had a scare when Nicoll-Klokstad had the ball ripped out of his grasp in the act of scoring in the final five minutes.
