Smith: Always confident once we cut out the errors (From Warrington Guardian)

Warrington Wolves overcome shaky first half to dominate Huddersfield Giants

5:44pm Sunday 2nd September 2012 in Wolves news By Christopher Terris Taylor

WOLVES boss Tony Smith admitted that his side may have shown some after effects of last week’s wild celebrations in the first half against Huddersfield, but was always confident that their class would shine through.

Warrington overcame an error-strewn first half to open a 16-6 lead at the break, but showed none of that rustiness after the restart when running in seven unanswered tries to compete a comfortable 54-6 victory at the Halliwell Jones Stadium .

“We were a team that had done a good job the week before and had celebrated well and there were some signs of that,” said Smith.

“We were very scrappy in the first half and probably showed that we were a team that hadn’t done a lot of training at the start of the week.

“We were a bit rusty with the ball and our skill level and passing and catching wasn’t on the money.

“However, our attitude was fantastic and that was evident right from the kick off.”

Wolves were rarely troubled in the second half, but when they were called to defend throughout the game they prevented Huddersfield gaining any kind of foothold in their territory.

For Smith, his side’s defence was the highlight of the match ahead of any of the 10 tries they had scored.

“Our defence was absolutely awesome and we had one slip up in defence and it cost us in the first half,” he said.

“But physically we were absolutely terrific and you could see how hard they were making it for our opponents to get out of their own half.

“We were completing less than half of our sets and in the second half we were much more controlled.

“We picked up our skills, our choice of pass was very good second half and not surprised by the score line at all once we took control of that.”

The Wolves coach revealed that there were no injuries to the absent Lee Briers and Chris Riley , with the pair both rested ahead of the forthcoming play-off games that start in two weeks time.

It was the first rest of the year for Riley, who previous to this week had played in every single one of Wolves’ matches.

“That’s his first rest for the year,” said Smith.

“He has done well to hang in that long without a break, but he got one this week and he’ll be itching to get out there again no doubt.”