? Wolves rack up a record 112 points against Lions
? Lee Briers kicks 16 goals and scores three tries
Warrington set new standards of ruthlessness in their quest for a third consecutive Challenge Cup win at Wembley with a club record 112-0 demolition of Swinton. The Wolves scored 20 tries against the Lions, who are top of the Championship One competition and came into the game with an eight-match unbeaten record, to provide irrefutable but unwelcome evidence of the gulf between the top Super League clubs and the part-timers in the lower divisions.
It was an especially significant night for Lee Briers, the Cheshire club's long-serving playmaker, who set three records. He kicked 16 goals and a hat-trick of tries gave him a personal tally of 44 points, which took him past Steve Hesford as Warrington's all-time leading pointscorer.
The prop Garreth Carvell also scored a hat-trick and the Australian wing Joel Monaghan claimed four tries, while the defensive shut-out meant that Warrington have now gone three full matches without conceding a point following a 62-0 romp against Castleford in the Super League last Friday and an 80-0 drubbing of Keighley in the previous round of the cup.
"We played some awesome stuff tonight, regardless of what level the team we were playing against," said the Warrington coach, Tony Smith, who described Briers as "a very good player with a fantastic knowledge of rugby league".
Steve McCormack, the Swinton coach, said: "I am disappointed with the scoreline but we will not be judged by this game. Warrington were absolutely fantastic and tore us apart from the start. We never had the ball."
The Wolves will be joined in the last eight by Leeds and Hull KR, who both had far tougher tests from Super League opposition. The Rhinos had to come from 14-6 behind at Headingley against a Harlequins team who showed a big improvement on their recent Super League form. They had regained control by half-time with the best try of the night from Ali Lauitiiti and went on to win 40-20 but the result may have come at a cost as their veteran centre Keith Senior was carried off with a knee injury.
Hull KR took another big step out of the giant shadow that the disastrous signing of Willie Mason has cast over their season with a convincing 25-0 win at Salford. The game was scoreless for 38 minutes as two teams who have struggled in the Super League focused on their best chance of success this season.
But Ben Galea, a lower-profile but better-value Australian second-row than the unfortunate Mason ? who is still awaiting a Tongan passport that has become a subject of derision in east Yorkshire ? then made a brace of breaks that led to tries for Blake Green and Ben Cockayne, giving Rovers a 12-0 lead.
Michael Dobson, the influential Australian import who has taken Mason's place on the club's overseas quota since recovering from an ankle injury, then underlined his value to the team by setting up a try for Kris Welham, and chipped over a drop goal before adding his fourth conversion to a late Jake Webster score.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/may/21/lee-briers-warrington-swinton
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