TONY Smith was pleased with Wolves’ performance across the board but highlighted his side’s kicking game after the win against Castleford.

Warrington’s kicking game has been criticised at times this season, but the club’s head of coaching and rugby was delighted with half backs Gareth O’Brien and Richie Myler in the 44-6 success.

“I’ve been longing to say this all year and I’ve just told our two young half backs; I thought our kicking game was terrific,” said Smith.

“I’ve been a bit critical of that at stages and we have as a group, it hasn’t been up to scratch at different stages.

“I’m really, really pleased to say it was outstanding today and it was a big contributor to getting a good lead and carrying on fairly well to the end.

“We got a little scrappy in the second half where we dropped a couple of balls in the ruck area, aside from that it was a good performance across the board.

“Myler was terrific and so was O’Brien. I’m pleased for both of them and at stages they both probably haven’t directed as well as we would have liked.

“Credit where credit is due, I’m really pleased for them and they’re both terrific young blokes.”

But Smith says the pair were backed up by some good performances throughout the side.

“It’s just good to perform well. We’ve performed well for the past for four or five weeks and we’ve been building for a really good performance,” he added.

“Often the weather can be a leveller in terms of the scoreline, but I thought my boys played the weather exceptionally well.

“Everybody is talking about the defence won them the game, but I thought the attack was really good.

“We played our tactics well in our first half.

“I though Bennie Westwood was best on field, I took him off for a reward, I thought he was sensational.

“Our bench was good today. The two replacement front rowers came on and did a good job in England and Roy. Clarkey was terrific again, he’s been in great form for the past month or so.

“Young Sam Wilde, scoring his first ever Super League try, doesn’t look out of place and far from it.

“He makes our 17 on merit. He could have played 19s last night and he was chosen in Super League ahead of some others who were available.

“He’s a good rugby league player and he’s going to be terrific in the future as well.”

However, Wolves did lose full back Matty Russell to an ankle injury in the first half.

“It’s the other ankle,” said Smith. “He was looking in good form, it’ll get scanned in the next 24 to 48 hours to see what kind of damage it is.

“He couldn’t have carried on, that was fairly obvious, hobbling back to retrieve a kick there.”