AT half time Tony Smith told his Warrington Wolves players to turn up the heat defensively and it paid dividends with a 42-26 victory at Castleford Tigers.

Wolves, trailing 18-16 at the break, also stuck to their guns by taking on their hosts with fast men down the middle and they took command with two converted tries in two minutes midway through the second half.

And 20 of their points in the second half were achieve while talisman Kurt Gidley was off the field with a head knock.

“We didn’t think we were too far off in the first half,” said Smith about his half-time team talk.

“With the ball I thought we were good in the first half, particularly coming out of our end.

“In terms of some of the finishing and how we finished some of those sets, we tried to be a little flashy instead of playing a little bit smart and making it hard for our opponents to come out of their own end.

“I just thought we weren’t aggressive enough in defence. Ok defence is not good enough against a good attacking team, and that’s what they are particularly on this field that they play on well and in the tough conditions (sunny and warm).

“In those conditions it was easy to clock off a little bit because of the weather, maybe taking a short cut or two.

“So we decided we weren’t going to do that in the second half and get a bit more aggressive defensively, and I thought that showed.

“If we stuck with the way we were playing through the middle in the second half I thought we’d get some points and we did.

“Brad Dwyer played a really good role for us. Coming off the bench, he doesn’t give anybody a breather around the ruck area when Daryl Clark comes off. And he came up with one of his trademark tries and then when Daryl came back on he ripped it up a level as well.

“When you’ve got the pressure of Matty Russell and Stefan Ratchford coming through the middle as well it’s tough work in days like today when your big men start to get some work. I thought it told on our opponents.”

He gave credit to Cas for their efforts in the first half.

“Junior Moors early on was hurting us, we didn’t know if he was going to run or pass. He left the field and then Luke Gale took over. He’s a jack rabbit around the park and then when you’ve got Luke Dorn around the back that’s dangerous as well.

“They asked some questions of us at times.

“We’re happy with today - to get that scoreline against a dangerous team like Cas on that pitch in these conditions. It was tough out there for both teams.

“We’re pleased to be breathing down the throats of a couple of teams in the table (Hull and Wigan).

“We’d like to be ahead of them already but next best thing is to be pretty close with quite a few games to go.

“There’ll be plenty of twists and turns in the competition yet within the 8s. It won’t be straightforward.

“We’ve made some progress from two weeks ago. Last week we were better, and I thought we were better again today. This is the time of the year you want to be getting better each game. We’re pleased.

“There was a bit longer turnaround for us this week. It gave us the chance to get some real quality work done and that told too.”