LOOSE forward Ben Harrison is confident Warrington Wolves are on the trophy hunt after learning from some early-season hiccups.

The 26-year-old has suffered an injury-plagued 18 months but admits his teammates have pulled him through.

Now the England international believes Tony Smith’s side can challenge come the business end of the campaign.

“There’s never a year when I’m not fully confident in the team’s abilities,” he said. “Even though we had a rocky start, we’ve got the quality of players and strength in depth to do something this year.

“It hasn’t been ideal, we took a while to find some partnerships and combinations but we’ve got a lot of promise.”

Emphatic wins over Catalan Dragons and St Helens followed a loss at strugglers Bradford Bulls, a defeat Harrison feels Wolves have learned from.

“It was way off the mark,” he added. “A result like that against bottom of the league was pretty horrendous.

“It shocked a lot of people, we had to re-evaluate ourselves and our attitudes. It shouldn’t take something like that, but if it does and it’s a blessing in disguise then we don’t let that attitude slip again.”

Making only eight starts in an injury-plagued 2013, Harrison’s comeback from pre-season surgery was interrupted by a torn hamstring and a wrist injury against Castleford.

“It is very frustrating,” he added. “Especially on the back of last year, I had all the operations to put everything right thinking I’d be in good stead.

“Then I pulled my hamstring and was out for another six weeks. It niggles away at you and can be quite demoralising, but the lads were all really good and helped me through.

“It’s been good to get a run of games together, the more I get the better the performances will be hopefully.”

Wolves will be without Trent Waterhouse against Wakefield at the Rapid Solicitors Stadium (Belle Vue) on Sunday. He will visit a specialist after sustaining a medial strain against Saints.

First team coach Richard Marshall also confirmed Simon Grix will continue to miss out, while Wolves’ on-loan winger Chris Riley is unavailable against his parent club.

However, Richie Myler may provide competition to the half backs after missing six games with shoulder trouble.

Marshall said: “They are the situations we want, people waiting for their opportunity. We’ve also got Gaz O’Brien at Swinton and hopefully his form will warrant selection over the coming weeks.

“Stef (Ratchford) and Chris Bridge have made a good partnership so if Richie Myler’s going to play he has to shift them.”