Tony Smith hails Warrington's Harvey Livett and Dec Patton
Saturday 6 May 2017 00:30, UK
Warrington coach Tony Smith was delighted with the contribution of his back-up players as they helped overturn a 14-0 deficit to pull off a crushing 40-18 derby win over St Helens.
The Wolves were indebted to 20-year-old utility player Harvey Livett as he stepped into the breach with a man-of-the-match performance highlighted by a try and six goals.
Smith also singled out Livett's half-back partner Dec Patton and former Wigan prop Dom Crosby, who made his first appearance for two months, as the Wolves overcame the absence of England trio Chris Hill, Kevin Brown and Stefan
Ratchford to revive their Betfred Super League top-eight hopes.
"It was probably our best performance in the league," Smith said. "After a costly start, we showed a lot of spirit to work our way back in and control it the way we did.
"We ended up with one of our least mistake-riddled games of the season and that gave us an opportunity to defend well.
"Harvey was very good. He came up with a couple of errors but got stronger as the game went on.
"Declan came up with some good plays, Mike Cooper really led the way up front for us, Benjamin Jullien had a wow of a game in attack and defence and Dom's impact was terrific for someone who hasn't played for so long.
"There's going to be a few headaches when we get our England boys back."
The Wolves turned the game around by running in 36 points without reply in a devastating 29-minute spell as Saints fell apart in alarming fashion.
Horror show
Interim coach Sean Long says newly-appointed head coach Justin Holbrook will have witnessed the horror show from Sydney as he awaits the arrival of his visa.
"He would probably have been watching," Long said. "He's watched our last three games."
How St Helens could have done with Alex Walmsley and Mark Percival, who are also in Sydney having flown 12,000 miles with England to Australia only to be left out of the team to play Samoa on Saturday.
"That's a bit frustrating," Long said. "If I'm being honest, I'm more disappointed for Percy and big Al that they won't get a crack at it. For us, they come back fresh for Cas next Saturday, which is probably our biggest game of the season."
Saints also lost skipper Jon Wilkin in the warm-up with a hamstring strain that forced a last-minute reshuffle.
"That was a bit of a blow," Long said. "I thought we lacked a bit of leadership out there.
"We still had enough players out there to win, especially when they were missing six or seven.
"I thought we started the game with real intent and our completion was up to about 80 per cent in the first 20 minutes.
"But we let them back in the game and went away from the game plan.
"They wanted it a little bit more than us at times, which is disappointing."
