TONY Smith has congratulated his Warrington Wolves players on the way they bounced back from a poor show at Huddersfield Giants to complete a Super League double over Widnes Vikings and take top spot back off their next opponents Wigan Warriors.

He highlighted positive play in attack and defence as a 48-16 scoreline on something of a bogey ground made a mockery of the 11-0 loss the previous week at bottom club Huddersfield Giants.

Smith was delighted to see his halfbacks Kurt Gidley and Stefan Ratchford getting it together, while defensively Wolves shut down key Vikings playmaker Kevin Brown and the majority of Vikings’ plays at the Select Security Stadium.

“Our half backs steered us around really well,” said Smith.

“Gidley was terrific. But I thought the combination of Stefan and Gids worked a whole lot better.

“They’d been thrown together in the last few weeks and it’s taken a little time for them to gel together but I thought there were some really good signs.

“I wouldn’t separate the two of them on that. I think jointly our half backs did a really good job.”

And on the defensive aspect of the performance, he said: “For most of the game we were outstanding. There was only a couple of moments of scrappiness where they scored their points. But other than that they looked really on it as a team.

“We knew what was coming and you have to deal with it – we dealt with it on most occasions, so a good team effort.”

Wolves got themselves into such a good position, 30-6 by half time, that they could afford to keep skipper Chris Hill off the field in the second half for a well earned rest as one of the season’s ever presents so far.

Smith said there was injury to his captain, stating: “Chris is fine. He did us a stint. Once the scoreline went out a bit it gave us the option of not playing him for so many minutes, getting him ready for next week.”

Summing up the performance, Smith said: “It was a good response to last week, and we were looking for a response.

“We were flat with the ball last week and we lacked energy. We invested a lot of energy in our defence last week in a tough old slog-out. And we were on the back foot.

“But not tonight. We wanted to get on the front foot and we did for most of the night.

“I thought we started really well, not just scoring points but field position and controlling the game.

“We were full of energy. The players wanted to respond and they showed it. They did it emphatically so well done to them.”

Smith said the final scoreline was a little deceiving.

“They made us work really hard for our tries,” he said.

“When you see a score like that sometimes you think there’s breaks all over the place.

“There weren’t that many breaks in the game. Widnes were defending strong in patches, they made us work hard. A lot of our tries came from close to the line, a couple of fantastic cut-out balls that Currie threw and some pieces of magic like that. They were really good tries and that was down to Widnes working really hard.

“I didn’t think their effort reflects the scoreline to some degree. They were good plays to score.

“I’m not sure I agree with the comment could we have played any better. Kevin Penny could have scored another four or five tries I reckon with a bit better skill at times. He was in position to score with a better pass to hand, but that’s the pressure the opponent puts on you too.”

Smith gave his thoughts on the performance of Joe Westerman, whose two first-half scores helped to take The Wire out of reach.

“He was good tonight. He really stepped up,” said Smith.

“He’s got a real rugby league mentality. He knows the last few weeks he probably hasn’t been at his best and he’s done a bit of extra homework in terms of what he needs to contribute to our team.

“And he responded with a performance like that. He’s still been feeling into his way into this new team and I like some of his solution there tonight to what he needed to do, and really picked it up. He took some big steps.”

And Smith added: “We had a lot of strong performers. I thought Ryan Atkins was back to some of his best as well. I thought he was outstanding there in terms of effort.

“And Ben Currie, wow, some great stuff.”

It sets the scene nicely for Wigan’s visit to The Wire next Thursday, when Wolves will go into the game holding top spot on points difference to their arch-rivals in cherry and white.

“It should be a good game again,” he said.

“We don’t usually fail to have good games between us. We’ll look forward to that but tonight I’m pleased with the way that our team went about it. It was a team effort.”