WARRINGTON Wolves’ academy side suffered defeat in their first home game of the season on Saturday.

They were beaten 30-16 by Leeds Rhinos at Victoria Park, with head coach Richard Marshall admitting his side have plenty to work on in their two-week break from fixtures that follows.

With several of his players involved in the reserves' win over Bradford Bulls five days earlier, Marshall also said that appeared to have a detrimental effect in the early stages of the match.

“We struggled to get going at the start of the game,” he said.

“We had around a dozen players involved with the reserves on Monday evening and that looks as though it may have taken some juice out of our tank.

“Take nothing away from Leeds’ performance in terms of energy but we looked a little heavy legged early on.

“After battling back into the game, we couldn’t handle the Leeds kicking game well enough, and in particular Jack Sinfield’s domination in the halves.

“On a positive note, it was good for us to see Ben Hartill back after illness and he looked sharp coming off the bench.

“Off the back of that performance we realise that we have a lot to work on – our discipline and ball control at key times let us down and we will address this in practice.

“We have no game no for two weeks so will be working on new combinations in training and will look to change the team around for our next fixture.”

Aiden Doolan, Adam Holroyd and Josh Lynch scored tries for the Wire youngsters, with Leon Hayes kicking two conversions from three attempts.

However, Jack Sinfield – son of Rhinos legend Kevin – was instrumental for the visitors, scoring a try and kicking five goals.

Will Gatus added two tries for Leeds, with Neil Tchambe and Jack Johnson also crossing.

Marshall's side do not play again until April 9, when they travel to East Yorkshire to take on Hull FC.

Wolves: Noah Booth; James Hartill, Jack Darbyshire, Jake Thewlis, Josh Lynch; Lewis Hughes, Leon Hayes; Ashley Barnes, Aiden Doolan, Jamie Reddecliff, Adam Holroyd, Lucas Green, Jack Edge. Subs: Logan Raughter, Bobby Shingler, Ben Hartill, Oliver Simpson

The Rhinos opened the scoring after ten minutes when centre Will Gatus managed to spin out of an attempted tackle and stretch over to score out wide on the left.

Four minutes later, the Wolves responded when they forced an error on the Rhinos 10-metre line and from the scrum, centre Jack Darbyshire was held just short and hooker Aiden Doolan went from dummy-half to force his way over wide out on the right with three defenders in attendance.

Midway through the half, Warrington took the lead when a clever reverse kick into the in-goal area on the last tackle from scrum half Leon Hayes saw second row Adam Holroyd react quickest to touchdown on the right.

Hayes converted but three minutes before the break, a kick into the in-goal area from Rhinos stand off Sinfield saw Gatus pounce to score on the left. Sinfield added the conversion to make the half time score 10-10.

Four minutes into the second half, Leeds went back in front when a Warrington error on their own 20-metre line saw the visitors gain possession and send the ball out to winger Neil Tchmambe, who managed to squeeze over in the right corner.

Sinfield converted from the touchline and then, 10 minutes later, another kick into the in-goal area on the last tackle paid dividends as loose forward Jack Johnson won the chase to score at the left of the posts. Sinfield added the conversion.

Just after the hour mark, the young Wolves gave themselves a lifeline when the forced a repeat set and from that, a clever high kick to the corner by Hayes was collected by winger Josh Lynch who scored on the left.

Hayes converted but an error from the restart was capitalised on by the Rhinos as Sinfield stepped back inside and through a gap to score on the left.

Sinfield added the conversion to his own try and then added a penalty with seven minutes remaining to complete a 30-16 win for the away side.