WOLVES boss Tony Smith felt his troops contributed to the difficulties they had before finally overcoming Castleford Tigers with the final play of the game yesterday.

Jack Hughes finished off a sweeping handling move to cross for the winning try with only 55 seconds remaining on the clock against a side that had dispensed with Wolves’ top-four rivals Hull FC and Wigan Warriors in previous Super 8s fixtures.

And mathematically Cas went into the game still fighting for a top-four place of their own.

“We had to fight hard for it, three tries to one,” he said.

“We had to find a hard way to do it and it probably wasn’t the way we would have planned.

“I thought the errors that we made contributed to how hard we made the game. The opposition tried really hard to make it hard for us and I think we did too.

“We need to cut some of those errors out, particularly in that first half. I think we had two balls out on the full from kicks, one from a kick-off, and some handling errors as well.

“Some of the pain we were suffering was self inflicted but to find a way to still win by coming home strong and coming up with a big play to score probably overcomes completion rates.

“A lot of people will quote you completion rates but it’s hard to qualify desire.”

Smith felt that his team’s defence was a strong point.

“To keep one of the best attacking teams in the country to one try was pretty good,” he said.

“They made it tough. They’re not in the Super 8s to fill in time, they are here to make it hard for everybody else.

“That was probably their final crack at it but it secures us a position in the top four. Who knows what can happen after this, we’ll see how far it goes.

“It’s a very good achievement to have secured top four. We’re currently sitting second in the competition, we’d prefer to be one further up but we’ve given ourselves a chance.”