TAKING everything into account, Wolves head coach Steve Price seemed happier after the Rochdale Hornets win than he did after the Widnes Vikings defeat.

With 12 first-teamers on the sidelines and going into today’s clash heavy-legged after the South Wales training camp, Price felt there was plenty to be positive about in the 24-10 victory over the Championship One club on the sandy surface at Crown Oil Arena.

Wolves trailed twice in a first half in which Jack Hughes, returning from suspension, and Ben Westwood spent time in the sin-bin – the latter for the second game in a row, while Toby King left the game early with an injury.

One more friendly sees The Wire face Salford at The Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday and then Super League kicks off with the visit of Leeds Rhinos on Thursday, February 1.

“Overall I was pleased with the intent, our line speed, and at times our ruck control was a big improvement so we can only take a lot of positives out of that,” said Price.

“We had a number of guys playing out of position today with the amount of players we’d been resting to get right for Salford next week.

“It’s about giving some younger fellas some opportunities. They’ve certainly got that.

"It was definitely a step in the right direction. It's still only a trial and the guys are in a heavy workload block and had a heavy session yesterday.

"It was a pleasing result. We hung in there and showed a fair amount of resilience.

“I think it was six or seven minutes we were playing with 11 men.

“For 20 minutes of the game we had 12 men.

“Defensively I thought it was a big improvement, especially in the second half with the amount of possession and how we were controlling field position and ruck speed.

"It's definitely heading in the right direction and we'll keep building with each week."

Going into games on the back of a heavy training session and long journey back from South Wales 24 hours before a game is not typical of how preparation will be when the season gets going.

Price said it is a case of needs must.

“It’s not all about trials, it’s about rounds one, two and three,” he said.

“With the amount of players we had in the World Cup, I think we had 12 with limited pre-season, a lot of those guys are still in pre-season mode.

“So that’s the reason, being with the short pre-season those guys have had, we can’t be backing off now. It’s what we do in a number of weeks (that matters).”

On the matter of discipline, with Wolves conceding a number of penalties along with the two sin-bin incidents, Price said he would be reviewing the video and addressing where he needs to.

It was a disappointing afternoon for centre King, collecting an injury.

“Toby’s got a little bit of a hamstring problem so we’ll assess that over the next 24 hours.”

New signing Bryson Goodwin was among those to catch the eye, some strong running and his goal-kicking standing out in particular.

“I’m very pleased with Bryson,” said Price.

“He didn’t get a lot of game time with the unfortunate head knock a couple of weeks ago but he’s come back really good.

“He’s aggressive, defensively he was quite sound and always looked threatening when he had the ball on the right side.

“He was 100 percent with his kicking today. He’s got a good strike rate.

“There’s a number of lads who have put their hands up for the kicking role. We’ve still got a couple of weeks until we finalise it.”