Steve Price: ‘We made it hard for ourselves against St Helens’

Drew Darbyshire

Warrington coach Steve Price has called for improvements to be made from his side following their home defeat to St Helens.

The Wolves were good contestants in the first half and only trailed 8-6 at the interval. Saints got on top in the second half though and ran away with the game, winning 30-12 at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Friday night.

And Price has called for his side to make improvements quickly ahead of next week’s trip to Catalans Dragons.

Speaking after the game, he said: “We make it hard for ourselves.

“The scoreline flattened us in the end. Saints are a quality football team. They have got a lot of good players, they are well coached and they were able to sustain pressure for long periods.

“We were doing really well and we were only down by two points with plenty of time to go. When you get a 12-6 penalty count and nearly double the amount of play-the-balls inside your own 20 metres than the opposition, it comes back to bite you and we have got to fix it.

“Saints had far superior play-the-ball speed than ours and they had us on the back foot so we have got to manage our control around the ruck better and that will be a big part of our training this week.

“We have got to keep working hard and we have got to get this out of our game, especially the penalties and tackle control.”

Wolves stars Mike Cooper and Ryan Atkins left the field with injuries and didn’t return. Price revealed that Cooper should be okay to face Catalans next Saturday but Atkins will be assessed further in the next couple of days.