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Tony Smith keeps cool as Warrington take over from Widnes

The Widnes coach, Denis Betts, accepted his side ran out of steam

Andy Hampson
Saturday 26 March 2016 01:23 GMT
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Head coach Tony Smith of the Warrington Wolves looks on during the Super League match between Widnes Vikings and Warrington Wolves
Head coach Tony Smith of the Warrington Wolves looks on during the Super League match between Widnes Vikings and Warrington Wolves

Tony Smith, the Warrington coach, refused to get carried away after his team moved top of the Super League with a hard-fought derby win over Widnes.

Warrington recovered from a 10-0 deficit to prevail 28-10 in a compelling encounter at the Halliwell Jones Stadium that saw them supplant their neighbours at the summit.

It is their best start to a campaign – seven wins from seven – for 66 years, and local enthusiasm was evident in a stadium-record 15,008 crowd, but Smith wants to keep the achievement in perspective.

“It is a nice position to be in, I can’t deny that,” he said. “But we don’t spend a lot of time focusing on where we are in the table because we know how far there is to go. But it has been a nice start for us.

“We probably weren’t at our best in the first half, but in the second half we were very committed. We showed that on our own try-line, defensively. We felt if we kept grinding away we would come home pretty strong and it turned out that way.”

The Widnes coach, Denis Betts, accepted his side ran out of steam. “We just lacked a little bit of composure, a little bit of initiative,” he said. “We just tried to fall over the line. We had all this possession, all this territory, all the opportunities, but they came out with the points.”

Shaun Wane, the Wigan coach, was delighted to extend his own 100 per cent record in Good Friday derbies but was disappointed not to have beaten St Helens by a bigger margin.

Wigan established a grip on the contest by half-time, when they led 16-0, but Saints restored some pride with a couple of second-half tries as they went down 24-12 in front of a full house at Langtree Park.

“It’s a great feeling, I just didn’t think the score reflected the game,” said Wane, whose side have not lost to Saints on Good Friday since 2009. “It would have been a bigger win if we had been smarter.”

The St Helens coach, Keiron Cunningham, admits he has work to do. “I thought we started phenomenally well – it was probably one of our best starts of the year,” he said. “But there were a couple of opportunities we didn’t take and one thing led to another.”

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