TONY Smith picked out his star performer in the Warrington Wolves ranks in Friday's home Super League loss to Castleford Tigers.

"I thought Joe Westerman tried his socks off again," he said.

"That’s his third in a row of big performances. He was enormous last week (against Brisbane) and this week I thought he really tried hard to get us going again at stages.

"But across the board it was not quite the performance we wanted or needed."

He was asked for his thoughts on the performance of Andre Savelio, who caught the eye with some barnstorming runs and two tries.

"Andre has been good, particularly these past two games," he said.

"I think there’s more to come from him. He’s still a young man who will get more robust and will get a bigger engine but he’s doing well at this stage and he’s a pleasure to work with.

"He sets some pretty high standards for himself. We’ll see a lot more of Andre through the year."

Smith explained the late reshuffle that saw Kurt Gidley replaced at full back by Jack Johnson, who was not origninally named in the 19-man squad.

"We put a deadline on Gidley of 2pm on Friday," said Smith.

"He rang up in the early hours to let us know he’d been up vomiting all night.

"You’re not going to have your same half-back or full-back combination every week, so it was an opportunity for Jack Johnson.

"He got the call-up on Friday afternoon and he did alright for someone who did not have much preparation and he certainly wasn’t our worst player out there."