Tony Smith says World Club Series officials must learn from Warrington Wolves v St George Illawarra Dragons

Smith said his side were not made aware of how the rules would be interpreted by referee Ben Thaler and his assistants.

Warrington’s head of coaching and rugby said St George deserved their win, but felt the high tackle from Eto Nabuli on Kevin Penny would have been a sending off in Super League.

“We played a lot of different rules tonight – I think there would have been a lot more penalties (in Super League),” he said.

“I think our man in the middle wanted to not blow a penalty in the game and was forced into it at the latter stages.

“I don’t think he wanted to give that as a penalty, I think he wanted a clean sheet at half time.

“That’s all we would have like to have known, that it was going to be a bit more relaxed in areas.

“We’ll be playing different rules again next week, don’t worry. It’s unfortunate, we should all be playing to the same rules, it makes it easier on everybody.

“Should he have been sent off? I’d class that as a coat hanger, yeah.

“It’s nice to know before you go in rather than find out along the way, that breeds frustration and sometimes what causes overflow in tempers.”

However, he was impressed by Penny, who started at full back after Stefan Ratchford was not named in the 17.

“Wasn’t is class from Penny to jump up straight away? He could have laid there and got his opposing player sent off,” added Smith.

“He just jumped up – then got bullied around by Gareth Widdop for jumping up. I didn’t get that one. Gareth should have been running in there to pat him on the back because it was a great bit of sportsmanship from Kev Penny.

“He was outstanding tonight. Really put his body on the line, along with a lot of our players.

“Super Bennie Westwood was super tonight – he was awesome. Put his hands up big time. Our young second rowers held their own and Wheeler was outstanding – he caused them problems every time he carried the ball.

“We had some mixed, a few off their game than the norm but you have them some days.”

But Smith feels the competition organisers need to use Wolves’ opening game as a learning curve for the rest of the weekend’s action.

“We’re going to learn heaps. There will be a huge review done at the end of this and hopefully over the weekend there’ll be discussions on interpretations,” he explained.

“They’ll learn from our game. We’ll learn heaps from this whole series.”

Smith continued: “We care about it and wanted to put in a great performance there tonight.

“We felt if we did put in a great performance we could come out on top. For anybody who thinks it’s not taken seriously, we’ve taken it extremely seriously in preparation.

“We’re really pleased and proud to be part of it, we’re disappointed we didn’t kick Super League off with a win.

“We’re a club that wants to participate in World Club Series in the future. I thought both teams took it extremely seriously.

“While it might not have been the prettiest game at stages, it was hard fought, both teams put their bodies on the line and we showed how serious we feel about it.

“We should go away from here saying this has got legs and it’s going to grow, when you get crowds and atmospheres like that it’s only good for us.

“We want to be participating on the Sunday in the future, so it was a good experience for us to come up against an Australian team and learn about coping with physicality and tactics.

“We’ll take plenty from it.”