No panic at Warrington, says Tony Smith

Warrington boss Tony Smith believes his side will be able to draw positives from their shaky start to the season.

Smith’s side lost two influential leaders in Lee Briers and Adrian Morley over the winter and have suffered shock defeats to Bradford, Castleford and Hull KR.

But Smith insists that there’s no panic in the squad and compared their situation to that of St Helens last season.

“We’ve never looked at it as a crisis,” he told Love Rugby League.

“We’ve played in some challenging games against some teams who have improved this year, it could be the closest season since i’ve been involved.

“Yes we’d like to be further up the ladder but there are a whole lot of benefits to where we are now.

“St Helens were probably in a similar situation this time last year because they were giving opportunities to youngsters and suffering from injuries to key players. 

“Last year was testing for them but look at them now, some of their outside backs are the most exciting in the sport.

“We’re hoping we’re going to see some of those benefits, not only in the long-term but in the immediate future of our young guys.”

The Wolves take on second placed St Helens at the Magic Weekend on Sunday and Smith believes his opposite number Nathan Brown hasn’t received enough credit for their start to the season.

“You can put it down to their exciting back line, Luke Walsh and their big pack of forwards, they’ve got a good team,” he said.

“But one thing that probably goes unnoticed is the work of their head-coach Nathan Brown.

“He’s a very good coach but it takes time to build culture and I think that people criticised him too soon last year.”

Smith wouldn’t be drawn into admitting his side are underdogs this weekend but instead spoke of how either side can win and that Super League is becoming more competitive.

He added: “What you’ll have on Sunday is two talented teams who will both think they have a good chance of winning the game.

“We’ll both respect each other knowing that if you don’t play well, you’ll get defeated.

“We’re getting more and more of that each and every week within our competition.

“There’s more teams who are able to beat one another and that’s what we’re striving for in Super League.”