STEVE Price said he will accept no excuses for the way in which Warrington Wolves were left desperately hanging on to their Challenge Cup quarter-final win at Hull KR after having led 22-0 midway through the second half.

Tries from Jake Mamo and Blake Austin gave The Wire a 12-0 lead at half time, despite having spent more than 20 minutes defending their own line while depleted in numbers due to sin-binnings.

First Tom Lineham was sin-binned for an off-the-ball challenge and then Dec Patton followed him for a technical offence, leaving the Wire down to 11 men for eight minutes and having to work overtime to turn wave after wave of Rovers attacks away.

Further tries from Lineham and Ben Murdoch-Masila put Wire in total control by the 52nd minute but the momentum changed.

Rovers twice got themselves back to within six points in a crazy final 20 minutes, with a Ben Currie try from an Austin kick eventually proving to be the difference.

"The first half was outstanding,” said Price.

"To play with 11 men and absorb that kind of pressure inside our 30-metre area is what our foundation has been built on over the last 18 months.

"I'm super proud of the boys, especially that first 40 minutes.

“I think Hull KR had 34 play-the-balls in our 30 metres - we had four.

"Then we lost two of our left-side players and we had to adapt so I was really pleased.

"The next 20 minutes after half-time we were in control, it was 22-0 and we were playing some reasonable footy.

"Then I was very disappointed with our attitude and our discipline, especially with the ball at the back end of the game."

He said the first-half efforts may have taken some toll on the players’ legs and lungs at the back end of the game but added: “I won't use that as an excuse, definitely not, because giving away a penalty when you've got the ball is unacceptable.

"However, it's a tough place to come. Hull KR have turned some teams over this year and we had to be at our best.

"It was good to get the result at the end.

“Credit to the players we’re another 80 minutes away from Wembley and that’s what we’re really striving to do.

“We can take a lot of confidence out of the first 60 minutes.

“To keep defending and conceding no tries with 11 men against that weight of possession on our try line is fantastic but for us to challenge for trophies we’ve still got to be better.

“There were some huge defensive moments - the Ben Currie one held up over the try line and the number of efforts off the ball of all 11 players, so I can get animated about the back end of the game but there’s still a lot of good things the boys did during that game.”