WARRINGTON Wolves must adapt to the tight surroundings of the Mend-A-Hose Jungle for their crucial Super 8s clash with Castleford Tigers tonight.

That is the view of head coach Steve Price, who has already seen his side come away from Wheldon Road with a victory this year.

Wolves triumphed 18-6 in farcical conditions on Easter Monday as part of the pitch was almost under water, but this evening will be a much more accurate gauge of both sides’ ambitions of breaking into Super League’s top-two.

The sides are level on 31 points – with The Wire above tomorrow’s hosts on points difference – and victory for either would allow them to close the gap on second-placed Wigan to a single point.

However, Price says they can think of nothing else other than themselves.

“We can’t control what’s happening above us, but what we can control is our own performances,” he told the Guardian.

“We’ve been quite strong in the past few weeks and we’ve been ruthless in a few areas.

“If we do those little things right, everything else will carry on.

“It’s a tight pitch at Castleford. Both teams will get a lot of attacking sets.

“We’ve trained for that. We want to roll out a really sound attitude again.

“One penalty coming out of yardage will have us defending our try line.

“That goes for both teams. It is really important that we control where we give them possession.

“We have to be really smart in our decision-making when we have the ball and when we don’t have it.”

With the Challenge Cup Final just over a week away, Price was able to manage his resources during Friday’s 56-6 win over fellow finalists Catalans Dragons, who brought a young, understrength team to The Halliwell Jones Stadium.

Daryl Clark was named on the bench but was not brought on, Chris Hill and Jack Hughes only played for short stints and the likes of Stefan Ratchford, Mike Cooper and Ben Murdoch-Masila missed the game completely.

With tonight’s game being so important and in such close proximity to their trip to Wembley, striking a balance could prove difficult for Wolves.

However, Price expressed faith in those players who came into the squad last week, including Mitch Brown and debutant Bodene Thompson, to step up for The Wire once again.

“We need to keep the team fresh. I think we’re up and around the 30 game mark now,” he said.

“It’s a really important game for us. We had a really good win down there earlier in the season, but we weren’t so good at home not so long ago.

“It’s about getting it right at the back end of the season, not at the start.

“As a group, we feel there’s a few more gears we can go to.

“It’s slowly coming together, but it’s important we manage our training loads at this time of the year. As a coaching group, I feel we’re doing that pretty well at the moment.

“We were fortunate not to play Daz Clark last week. Chris Hill and Jack Hughes only did a small amount of minutes as well.

“Mitch is the ultimate pro. What you get from him is an eight out of 10 in every performance, whether that’s in training or on game day.

“He’s team first, and that’s what we’re trying to breed here.

“I thought Bodene played a really solid game on debut, so I was really pleased to him.

“I like to think that in a few more weeks, when he’s used to the intensity of Super League, he will get better still.”