A TRAINING week that all goes to plan would surely be welcomed by Warrington Wolves at the moment - no matter how well they cope as a consequence!

On Tuesday night it became clear that skipper Joel Monaghan’s hamstring niggle would keep him out of the Leeds game.

It was documented last week how Wolves only managed one full training session before playing Catalans Dragons in France, that due to the impact on players’ bodies from the physical World Club Series clash against St George Illawarra Dragons.

Then last week there were some players, as well as staff, hit by flu - one of the worst hit being Ryan Atkins who had to pull out on the morning of the Hull KR game.

The consequent reshuffle handed opportunities to two of Warrington’s rising talents, former Culcheth Eagles and Latchford Albion junior Joe Philbin making his first Super League start in the back row.

George King had gone to bed the night before not expecting to play, but suddenly he was thrown in for his first appearance of the season.

In such circumstances, any team can expect some disruption in their play.

But I would say it worked out fairly well in the end when you reflect on tries that were scored in the second half, including the match winner from Ben Currie, who had switched to centre in place of Atkins.

Although Wolves at times had a left-sided combination that had not been seen before at The Halliwell Jones Stadium - Philbin, Currie and Matty Russell - five of the team’s six tries came on that side of the field.

Philbin combined with Currie and Russell in the lead-up to Gary Wheeler’s score, before Currie handed on to Russell for another.

And it was King who slipped a lovely pass for Stefan Ratchford to send Currie away for the decider.

In those instances we could see hours and hours of hard work on the training paddock, or inside Wolves’ plush new training centre as the case will likely be at this time of year.

We’ve already seen plenty of new combinations this year - including Wheeler getting used to playing alongside Gareth O’Brien in the halves, Kevin Penny chiming into the line at full back, the forwards in tandem with new dummy-half Daryl Clark.

And we’ve seen loss of availability to various degrees of Rhys Evans, Richie Myler, Anthony England, Simon Grix, Roy Asotasi, Ratchford and Atkins.

Not everything has been pretty, the result in France was disappointing, but the experiences will serve Smith’s camp well as the season progresses.