WARRINGTON Wolves head coach Daryl Powell has given his thoughts on the performances of new signing Tom Mikaele and marquee man George Williams in the 30-26 loss to Wakefield Trinity at Belle Vue on Sunday.

Mikaele made his debut off the bench a week after joining the club from NRL outfit Wests Tigers.

“I thought he was strong," said Powell.

"He’s going to take a little bit of time to get fit and get up to the speed of the game over here, as he’d not played for quite a few weeks since he agreed to come over."

Powell then added: "I thought we worked hard. I just think we need to improve everything that we do, but I thought there were some better signs with the ball.

"Defensively, we’re still conceding too many and I think that’s a result of us being nervous to be honest. You’re always going to feel a little bit uncomfortable. We’ve got to feel comfortable as a team, that when we’re defending we can keep the opposition out.”

With regards to Williams' display at scrum-half, Powell said: “I thought he played well today. Is his game perfect? No. But is anybody’s?

"I think George is a player you expect a lot from and he’s working hard. He’s one who needs to relax a little bit, free his head, and not get wrapped up with all the pressure. And I think he’s the same as the team (in that regard).

“And the pressure we’re under at the moment makes that a little bit harder. But it is what it is, we’ve just got to deal with it. We can’t worry about it and put our heads in the sand, we’ve just got to keep fighting.”

Williams made a clean break and handed over to supporting centre Connor Wrench to score what would likely have been the winning try at Belle Vue, only for Lewis Murphy to pull off a tackle that Powell described as 'world class'.

Full-back Lee Gaskell hung back to force Williams into a decision to pass inside to the covered Oliver Holmes or outside to Wrench, or to go on his own.

Powell was asked if Williams passed the ball to early, as no defender was committed by the move.

“I think he saw Connor and thought, he’s that fast, he’s just gone," said Powell.

"Murphy’s quick as well behind him. It’s a tough one. It’s easy to say when you’re watching the replay and you think about it afterwards, but I think he just thought Connor will fly in."

The Wire chief made five personnel or positional changes to his 17 after saying in the build-up that the team needed some fresh input.

Did he feel he got that from the changes he made?

“Yeah. I thought we were good for periods. There were parts of the game we functioned a lot better," said Powell.

“I made a forced change with Pete Mata'utia missing, and I thought Connor was pretty good and Josh always works hard on the wing.

“And I obviously changed the middle a little bit. And I thought the boys that came in did pretty well.

"It was good to see Thomas out there. We’ve got competition for places at the moment which is something that we really need. What we need more than anything, we need to win. We’re in a tough spot. We’ve just going to keep going."