TONY Smith was honest in his appraisal of the team’s failings at Leigh Centurions last night and said the only solution to having suffered five straight defeats is ‘hard work’.

Former England forward Gareth Hock proved to be too hot for Wolves to handle, scoring two tries in a man-of-the-match display as Leigh celebrated a first win over The Wire for 29 years.

"Leigh out-enthused us,” said Wolves’ head of coaching and rugby after the 22-8 loss at the home of the Super League new boys.

"I thought both teams made a reasonable amount of errors, particularly in the first half.

"I thought the penalties really hurt us. And the errors as well - there's too many of them.

Look back over the game as it happened, plus fans' reactions

"Leigh came up with a close-to-the-line try from Gareth Hock. We class that as pretty soft when we concede those. We need to be stopping those.

"We didn't put any points on in the first half except for that late penalty goal.

"It was disjointed attack. It wasn't cohesive and certainly not how we trained. That hurt us.

"In the second half, I just thought the amount of self-inflicted pain hurt us again.”

Smith explained: "My players are trying hard, they're trying to do the right things, but they're just coming up with options like intercept passes.

“We're working hard to get back in those situations, but it takes a whole lot out of you at the moment.

"And some of those options we're taking are hurting us. Once you get on top of it, once some of those players start to make some of the better options then the roll starts to go your way. It just hasn't worked that way for us yet."

Smith said the players' heads were down in the changing rooms after the game: "They're absolutely disappointed and I'll tell you for why. We trained so well this week, and each of our weeks have been good.

"Chris Hill coming back gave us that little bit of a boost. We've looked really sharp in training, we've combined well in training and it looked as if this was going to be the start of the progression for us.

"So to go and perform like that is, of course, makes for a disappointed dressing room.

Photo gallery of the 22-8 loss at Leigh Centurions

"But what we'll do is regroup. We'll be in tomorrow to get in some hard work, and again over the weekend, to get this right and fixed up.

"Hard work is the only way to get your confidence back and get back into form.

"And we've got to get some of our better players back in their best form, because we need them that way."

As Smith revealed in Warrington Guardian this week, England full back Stefan Ratchford will be back in contention for the first time this season when Wolves visit St Helens next Friday.

But he added: "We can't just rely on people returning and doing a good job.

"We've got to get some of the people who are already in there doing a good job and some of them aren't on their best form at the moment.

"It's frustrating as a sportsperson when you're not in that groove of what you can do. It becomes frustrating and sometimes the harder you try the worse you get for a while until it all starts to flow again.

"We've got to get some of our boys flowing again. It will, it'll come for us.

“It's hurting at the moment and I feel for the fans who are hurting, hearing our opponents sing certain songs.

"It's going to hurt for sure. But we've got to stick together, we'll work through this and come out the other side. We'll probably have a big smile on our faces when we do."