DARYL Powell admits that, currently, his Warrington Wolves side aren’t able to operate at the kind of level the likes of Wigan Warriors do for long periods.

In what was the biggest test of their recent upturn in fortunes, The Wire were hammered 40-22 by their neighbours last night at The Halliwell Jones Stadium.

They conceded seven tries to a Warriors outfit that exposed gaping flaws in their defence, with the left edge receiving particular punishment.

Three of Wigan’s four first-half tries came down that side of the field and while tries from Riley Dean and Matty Ashton kept them just about in touch, Liam Farrell’s score and a quickfire double from Liam Marshall either side of the interval ended the game as a contest.

“It’s topsy-turvy at the moment,” Powell said.

“We started so poorly – a six-again in the first set and that first try is a poor try to concede.

“We didn’t come forward and have any impact as a defensive line and that set the stall out.

“We consistently lost the ruck area. They had way more punch than us, got the ball to the floor and consequently, they dictated the pace of the game.

“We battled hard until the end but it’s disappointing.

“Easter’s been particularly tough – the boys have worked hard to stabilise us but we got a look at where we need to go to and at this moment in time, we aren’t able to go at that level.

“We need to find a way to do that and maintain it across an 80-minute period.

“The try before half-time is a little bit of a killer. We didn’t deal with (Patrick) Mago and he’s pretty good with his offload game.

“The players will be frustrated playing in a game like that because it’s that fast.

“It was similar against Hull a couple of weeks back – the game’s that fast you’ve just got no ability to hold your structure together.

“It’s just helter-skelter rugby league – that’s what I see at the moment.

“As soon as we pull our ability to play as a team together, we’ll look much better but it’s not for long enough in games.”

Iain Thornley crossed twice either side of Dean’s score for The Wire, with Bevan French also scoring before Ashton touched down in the left corner to narrow the gap to eight points.

However, Farrell scored just before the break and in the first 10 minutes of the second half, Wigan moved the ball quickly to get Marshall over twice.

Ethan Havard then crashed through a tired Wire defence before Danny Walker and Peter Mata’utia scored late consolations.

“Early on in the first half, the left edge gets exposed pretty heavily,” Powell said.

“Some of the stuff they did was smart and our ability to put defenders where they needed to be was too slow.

“You don’t want to be conceding at all but if you’re conceding in the same area, there’s something there that needs to be improved.

“The left edge got put under a lot of pressure and they didn’t handle it well.

“It’s not entirely their fault as there were things happening on the inside that affected it.

“It was a poor performance against a team that’s going pretty well. I’m not making any excuses – Wigan were too good for us tonight.

“There’s a bit of pride dented.

“It’s a tough changing room and you don’t want to go in there being too hard on the boys at the moment. The same players have played four games over a very short period of time.

“Individually, we’ve got to sort some things out defensively. Technique wise, there’s things we need to improve.

“And then collectively with being able to keep teams out – I thought we’d improved before this game but we’ve taken some steps backwards.”