DARYL Powell was under no illusions that his Warrington Wolves side will have to vastly improve in terms of performance following their victory over Wakefield Trinity.
The Wire ran out 32-18 winners against Super League's winless bottom side, who clawed back a 12-0 deficit to level matters before Kevin Proctor's second-half red card.
The New Zealand international was dismissed for a high shot on Josh Thewlis and the numerical advantage allowed the hosts to stretch out, with Matty Ashton scoring twice either side of George Williams' solo effort.
However, Powell insists that level of performance will not suffice in their next fixture as a rampant Hull KR side visit The Halliwell Jones Stadium on the back of six straight victories.
Here is everything Powell said in his post-match press conference...
Q: After going 12-0 up early, did that end up being much tougher than it should have been?
DP: You’ve got to give credit to Wakefield – they worked really hard to get back in the game.
We started exactly how we wanted to. Everything we spoke about, we applied but I thought we clocked off. Mentally and defensively, we shut down a little bit.
They ended up getting a pretty smart try when we clocked off on the inside, then we start making a couple of errors which allowed them back into the game.
We were really loose defensively in the middle portion of that first half and I don’t think we were ever really fluent in the way that we played.
We take two in the second half just to get ourselves in front and calm the boys down, then I thought we controlled the game for large parts without ever being great.
There’s some lessons for us – some of the things we spoke about after the Wigan and Saints games we got better at, but we’d still be disappointed with that.
That’s not where we want to be. Wakefield were really good and had a fair dig at us, but we would want to be a lot better than that.
Q: What do you put that clock-off at 12-0 down to? Is it concentration on your part or was it more Wakefield taking it to you?
DP: Probably a little bit of both – they stepped up and started travelling across our middle and that’s what got them their first try.
We got loose in the ruck and it was too quick. They then get a try on the last through some smart play from Mason Lino which we were slow to react to.
In general, we were slow to react to things towards the end of that first half and we’ve got to take responsibility for that.
We’ve got our review tomorrow so we’ll question where we’re at with that, why that’s happening and then come up with a plan.
We won’t be winning next week playing like that, that’s for sure.
Q: Did there have to be strong words at half time or did you have faith the players would sort things out themselves?
DP: It was really just outlining where I thought we were going wrong, which was a complete drop-off in energy and concentration.
We want to be a ruthless team and at the moment, we aren’t. We have some development to do in that regard.
We’ve won the game – it’s about winning and you don’t win every game how you want to win it necessarily. It was important we got back on track and we’ve done that tonight without being as good as we wanted to be.
Q: The red card is obviously a turning point – do you feel you would have wrestled control back without it?
DP: I thought we were controlling territory and had the lion share of possession at that point.
George was just getting into the game at that point after he really struggled to do that in the first half. He was probing on the inside and that’s what got the high tackle from Proctor.
That gave us the numerical advantage and that was probably a really big deciding factor in the game
We got loose at the end again but it was all about winning the game.
We’ve got a big game next week to focus on – Hull KR have put the cleaners through Huddersfield tonight so we know how big a challenge that is going to be.
Q: What were your thoughts on the performance in the last 25 minutes after Wakefield went down to 12? It’s a funny situation to find yourself in as you’re expected to win at that point and it puts you under more pressure?
DP: I thought we dealt with it alright – our left edge had some really good running opportunities.
If you give Matty Ashton an opportunity like he got at the end, he’s rapid and he finished a class try there.
We handled it okay until the end, when we start offloading the ball when we’ve already conceded 18 points. We didn’t need to be giving Wakefield more opportunities to score.
Eighteen points against is way too many – 12 is the maximum we are prepared to accept and we got to that point pretty quickly.
I thought we did well when they went down to 12 – we got control of the game and kept it until the end.
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