Steve Price praises Warrington debutant Luis Johnson
Warrington coach Steve Price spoke highly of debutant Luis Johnson following their defeat at Wigan.
The Wolves went down to a 26-6 defeat to the Warriors in round five of the Super 8s at the DW Stadium on Friday night.
Johnson, 19, made his first-team debut for the Wolves after joining from Castleford Tigers for £45,000 in the off-season.
On Johnson’s debut, Price said: “We had a fair few troops missing and we had a few young guys out, and I’m really proud of Luis Johnson’s effort.
“He had a great debut against a quality football team. It was a great effort by Luis to save that try at the end. For a 19-year-old on debut against a team like Wigan, it is exciting times for him.
“He has played in the middle over the last four weeks in the Under-19s, but he has been more of an edge player growing up. We decided to put him in the middle in the Under-19s to get him working harder and his game is progressing nicely.
“Every player who puts on the Wire jersey, we expect them to have a crack and compete hard and he did. There are still a lot of areas in his game which he needs to improve on over time and with another full pre-season he will be better, but it was a good debut for him.”
Tom Lineham was sin-binned for Warrington in the 68thminute when they were only 8-6 behind, and Price admitted that the yellow card had a big effect on the outcome of the game.
He added: “I thought there were not much between the teams, there were two teams having a crack and when we lost Tom Lineham with only 12 minutes to go, that was the turning point.
“We couldn’t pull back the big wave and they scored a few tries in quick succession and that flattened us in the end.
“We could have managed the game a bit better. They handled having 12-men better (Sam Tomkins’ sin bin) than what we did in the second stanza. We have got a bit of work to do but we will hopefully have a few blokes back next week.”
Proposals to scrap the Super 8s concept have been voted through following the Rugby Football League’s Extraordinary General Meeting on Friday morning.
And Price is glad to see the structure changed, he said: “I think it is a good outcome for the game.
“It needed to happen and it is good that it has been agreed upon and I feel there are a few other decisions that need to be made but I will leave that to the powers of the game but it is a good outcome.”