TONY Smith says the imminent returns of Chris Hill and Stefan Ratchford will provide the Wolves squad with a big lift.

Skipper Hill is set to make his return from hernia and shoulder surgery when The Wire travel to former club Leigh Centurions tonight, Thursday, kick off 8pm.

Smith also confirmed Ratchford is “more than likely” to feature against St Helens on Friday, March 24.

The Wolves boss, who admits confidence has been dented by Thursday’s 38-16 defeat to Wigan Warriors, says Hill’s return will be a boost to the squad but was coy on whether he would start at Leigh Sports Village.

“He’s a fair chance of being in there, he’s come through training pretty well and it’s looking positive for him,” he said.

“Stef will be the next one back, he will more than likely be involved against Saints.

“Chris does give the place a lift, the fact that he’s back around in training and back in the mix has boosted us.

“We can’t rely on that, people need to lift themselves and be good without Chris. If he’s there, we need to be good with him as well.

“Our confidence probably got dented last week in particular, aside from that we’re in pretty good spirits.”

The Wire remain bottom of Super League having lost all four of their domestic games in 2017.

They face a Leigh side that have won two of their three home games since returning to the top flight and Smith says cutting out the basic errors will provide the key to victory.

“It’s a matter of us continuing to work as we are doing and things will turn,” he said.

“They’ve trained really well again, it’s the only way to prepare for big games and they are all big games now.

“Some of the errors we’re making, particularly early on last week, were just fundamentals but that means we have to practice them even more.

“Its things like getting up to play the ball correctly, even when there’s feet, hands or knees in there.

“You’ve got to be able to do it cleanly, it hurts the team if you don’t.

“Getting those things right has been our big focus, when we do get it right it relieves the pressure on our defence.

“We had way too much work to do in that first half last week because of those fairly basic errors.”