TONY Smith praised Warrington Wolves’ spirit after they fought back from 10 points down at the interval to score five second half tries against Huddersfield Giants.

The visitors trailed 14-4 going into the break, but put 29 unanswered points on the board to make it 15 wins in 19 meetings with their hosts during Smith’s reign.

The head of coaching and rugby said his side had showed the same spirit in their loss to Wigan Warriors last round, but believes today’s second half performance was a sign of what Wolves can produce.

“To keep a team like Huddersfield, one of the quality teams, to nil for 40 minutes I’m pleased about,” he said. “It takes a big effort, but I thought we did it with some real control.

“In terms of spirit and courage we are not lacking in any of that, but I thought that showed last week the way we played against Wigan.

“We showed a lot of spirit today to come from 14-4 down and to have no points conceded in the second half; that’s the sort of team we want to be.

“There are some things we want to tweak and become smoother with in terms of execution, but if the spirit isn’t there you’re in trouble, but we’ve got plenty of that.”

Smith sympathised with Huddersfield after the final scoreboard showed a Wolves rout, admitting it can happen to teams chasing the game.

“It’s nice when your defence can score some points and that’s what we did in the end,” he added. “Our defence scored some points and when we’re defending well that’s what comes.

“But they were chasing the game and it can happen, it’s happened to us in the first round where we were behind on the scoreboard and that makes pressure, makes you become a bit desperate and it didn’t quite work for them.”

The former Giants boss believes, like Wolves, his old side are still finding their feet in this year’s Super League, but anticipates a close game in the reverse fixture later this season.

“There wasn’t much between us that first half,” he explained. “Two teams just not quite clicking, but they will click at some stage though as they’ve got too many good players.

“They are just not quite nailing their game at the moment and we’ll have some more hard battles with Huddersfield as the year goes on.”