WARRINGTON Wolves are off the mark in Betfred Super League 2018.

The Wire made it a 10th win from their last 10 meetings with Widnes Vikings, to bag their first victory under new head coach Steve Price.

Ryan Atkins crossed once in each half of a contest that got tastier and tastier the longer it went on.

Wolves were never behind, but they were unable to fully shake off their fierce rivals who laid siege to the try line in the last quarter to leave the visitors hanging on with 12 men after Mike Cooper was sin-binned for holding down.

The match was full of incident, including referee Phil Bentham left the field in a dazed state in the second half following a collision with Vikings forward Chris Houston.

Several scuffles broke out on the field, flares were let off under the concourse at The Wire end.

Warrington took charge inside 14 minutes with two clever tries.

Firstly, Dec Patton’s kick early in the set allowed Ryan Atkins to win the ball in the air and drop over the line.

And then from a tap penalty Ben Currie deceived the defence with a drive that led to an exquisite try-scoring pass for Stef Ratchford to scoot over. Bryson Goodwin converted the second one.

Wolves gave Vikings a foothold by conceding a couple of penalties and being forced into a goal-line drop-out.

Eventually Joe Mellor’s little grubber allowed Krisnan Inu to touchdown and reduce the gap to six points.

It stayed that way until half-time and Wolves started the second-half brightly, as they did in the first.

Good approach work from Chris Hill and Daryl Clark led to Ratchford kicking long for Atkins to pluck the ball out of the air and stretch out for his second try, converted by Goodwin.

Referee Phil Bentham had to be helped off the field in a dazed state after a collision with Widnes forward Chris Houston.

Touch judge Scott Mikalauskas took over the whistle and from a penalty he awarded for Daryl Clark being held down Goodwin booted the goal to extend the lead to 18-4 after 55 minutes.

Jack Hughes raced away for a try soon after but a fight in back play brought the intervention of the officials, who said Currie had started pushing and shoving Inu therefore ruled out the try.

A Gilmore kick brought a second try for Inu, converted by the supplier, to cut the arrears to 10 points with 14 minutes remaining.