Warrington Wolves boss Tony Smith believes defence was key to victory at Celtic Crusaders (From Warrington Guardian)

Warrington Wolves boss Tony Smith believes defence was key to victory at Celtic Crusaders

7:24pm Sunday 5th July 2009

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TONY Smith made his case for the defence following Wolves' 22-6 win at Celtic Crusaders.

The Warrington chief highlighted his players' work off the ball as crucial to victory in a game where they made too many errors.

And although wary not to be too critical of his players, head of coaching and rugby Smith admitted they have plenty to work on following their victory at Brewery Field.

He said: "We were great in defence, I thought our defence was awesome.

"I don't want to be too negative but there were some handling errors and some individuals came up with handling errors.

"I liked some of the way we started to play early on, I was really encouraged by it, and then some errors crept in.

"It was a greasy ball and it's been a while since we've played in those sort of greasy conditions. It wasn't wet, it wasn't raining but it was greasy out there and some individuals struggled with that.

"But I was quite satisfied with the manner we went about it. There was some good rugby league played and some enterprising tries.

"I don't want to be too downbeat about it because that would mean we're not giving enough credit to Celtic, who I thought defended pretty well as well. They were pretty solid in that area."

Although handling errors were prevalent, Smith was not too disappointed with his team's passing or attacking execution.

Instead, it was the ruck where he felt his team were most vulnerable.

He said: "I always felt we were in control. There was just a little patch where we came up with five or six errors in a row and three penalties in a row and that was the only period of time that I felt like we just lost our way.

"But, other than that, I wasn't displeased with too many of our errors.

"Some of our handling wasn't so much forced passes or silly offloads. It was more on the ground, a little bit of lack of control when there were three or four people on top of you.

"There are some things there to work on."

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