WOLVES head coach Tony Smith praised his side for the way they adjusted in Thursday’s 40-10 hammering of Wigan Warriors.

Despite falling behind to Josh Charnley’s try, Wire roared back with seven tries to move two points clear at the top of Super League.

Ryan Atkins and Ben Westwood both scored twice, with further tries coming from Daryl Clark, Kevin Penny and Benjamin Jullien.

There were a few injury scares along the way, with Atkins and Tom Lineham both having to come off and Rhys Evans playing on after taking a couple of heavy hits, but Smith was delighted with the way his side adapted.

“My heart was in my mouth for Rhys Evans a couple of times but he got through it, it looked as if we were going to lose both our right edge and right centre,” he said.

“We made some adjustments and our replacements did a great job.

“We were a little worried about the use of our bench but Benjamin Jullien was terrific when he came on and Bennie Westwood did a great job.”

The visitors had the better of the early stages and Charnley’s score put them 4-0 up, but Smith was pleased with how his side picked up the intensity after that.

“I thought it took us about 15 minutes then we turned the volume up, our defence kicked into gear and we started getting really physical,” he said.

“You have to stand up against Wigan because they come at you hard and I thought we stood up really well today.

“Daryl Clark has been pretty good in defence for us but tonight was his best defensive game for a while.

“We built our game on our defence and got our rewards before half time, it set us up nicely for the second half where our attack improved.”

Smith was also pleased with the work of Kurt Gidley and Stefan Ratchford in the halves, saying they had learnt lessons from the defeat at Huddersfield two weeks ago.

“We only had one or two average kicks, aside from that our kicking game was really good,” he said.

“We learned those lessons a couple of weeks ago at Huddersfield when it comes to kicking in wet conditions, so even a loss has helped us out in the end.

“Kurt is the general at the moment, every set he’s orchestrating our play and I thought he and Stef worked really well together.”