TONY Smith believes Warrington Wolves’ recent confidence is based on the best defence from one of his sides in recent years.

At times Wolves had to defend their try line heroically as they beat Hull KR at the KC Lightstream Stadium to make it six wins on the bounce on Friday.

And head of coaching and rugby Smith has been impressed by a defensive effort he says makes Wolves hard to beat.

“I think there’s a confidence building within the team,” said Smith. “A lot of that revolves around our defensive efforts.

“We’re defending our try line as good as we have probably for a couple of years in this period that we’ve found in the last six or eight weeks.

“Whilst ever we’ve got that effort, determination to protect our try line it makes us hard to beat, particularly with some of the try-scoring ability within the team as well.”

However, the Wolves boss knows his side have to carry on performing well if they are to continue their winning streak.

“I don’t know about momentum,” he added. “It can all fade in one week. You can hit a slump or find some reasons not to be energetic, so when you’re missing some players it can have an effect on you.

“I’m not going to say we weren’t missing some players, but we rolled our sleeves up all the same and got on with it.”

Smith was particularly pleased with what he called Wolves’ ‘toughest’ performance after a short turnaround from the Challenge Cup win against Bradford Bulls on Sunday.

“Anything can happen in a short turnaround,” he explained. “I expect our players to try their hardest and put in a great effort, absolutely, but you can still come out second when that happens, especially after that short turnaround.

“But we turned up good, full of energy and the boys rolled their sleeves up. Some young blokes in and they did a fantastic job.

“It was a really tough, I see the word ‘toughest’ and I’m not going to exaggerate it was a good, hard, tough performance from us.

“I thought we were really professional and I don’t know if it’s the toughest effort of the year but it was right up there for us and really proud of the efforts of the boys right across the board.”