HEAD coaches Lee Briers and Danny Fullerton were full of praise for Warrington Wolves’ under 19s side after they overturned a half time Wigan lead to win on Thursday night.

Wigan edged the first half at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, but Wolves came back strongly and dominated the second following some wise words in the interval from coaches Fullerton and Briers.

Briers said: “The lead up into the game was really good but in the first half we weren’t as smart as we should have been and that meant we were defending for long periods.

“The boys took on board what Danny and I told them at half time and you could see in their eyes that they all had the confidence to hit back and that is what we did.

“We have got some big powerful players all across the field and they caused havoc in the second half.

“Tom Walker and Robert Holroyd came off the bench and added some real intensity to our go forward.”

Briers also praised the club’s strength and conditioners for getting the players into shape for the clash.

“A lot of credit must go to Jake Batsford and John Thursfield, who have got the lads in such great physical shape and we are bearing the fruits of that,” he added.

“It is always nice to put one over Wigan at any level but we now put this behind us as we build up to a big test at Huddersfield next Thursday.

“We still have a lot of improvement in us for us to achieve the standard that we want to reach but we are certainly going in the right direction.”

Fullerton put Wolves’ improved performance in the second half down to smarter play from his charges.

“I was very impressed with the energy and effort from the boys towards the defensive work they had to do and this was the catalyst to us getting back into the game,” he said.

“Wigan threw a lot at us and we soaked it up really well. We were a lot smarter when we had the ball in the second half and this allowed us to build pressure on the Wigan line which created opportunities for us to exploit.

“Jack Johnson was outstanding at full back and capped his performance with a great individual try at a crucial time in the game.”