Warrington coach Tony Smith pays tribute to St Helens

Warrington coach Tony Smith paid tribute to St Helens and admitted the Wolves did not deserve to win at Langtree Park.

St Helens survived a Warrington Wolves fightback to win 32-24 on Thursday and maintain their unbeaten start to the Super League season.

After Warrington's heroics against Leeds last weekend, the Wolves were looking to end Saints winning start to the season. However St Helens physicality and defence proved too much despite a stirring fightback.

"We were way off what where we needed to be tonight, " said Warrington boss Tony Smith.  

"Saints deserved the win; the way they defended their try line was very good.

"They deserved to have more of a lead but what I like about my team is that they did not give up and they gave it a shot. We were not potent enough on their try line but Saints did a great job on us.

"They were much better at controlling the ruck than we were and we will learn a few lessons from tonight. Some of the potency in our attack is not quite there yet and we need to get a little more about us.

"We will have a couple more troops coming back next week as well but Saints deserved their win, we will have a couple more stoushes with them before the year is out, I can assure you."

Game management

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St Helens coach Keiron Cunningham admitted to being a bit nervous as he watched Warrington score twice, cutting down Saints' lead to just six points with five minutes remaining.

"I'm not sure how my heart is going and I am sure Tony [Smith] will feel the same," said Cunningham.

"It was unpredictable at times, both are good attacking sides – Warrington can attack, we know that but I thought we had control of the game on numerous occasions but I felt our game management let us down at times when we were ready to close the game down.

"I think we scrambled really well and the resilience in this isde is second to none. We stopped some tries being scored and went the other side and scored some of our own. That to me is the sign of a good side."