TONY Smith was delighted with Warrington Wolves’ defensive performance against Leeds Rhinos in Super League round five.

Wolves kept Leeds, who scored 40 second-half points against Hull FC last week, to a single try as Kevin Penny, Stefan Ratchford and Ryan Atkins crossed for the hosts.

And the club’s head of coaching and rugby believes that was the key to their 18-6 success.

“It was fantastic, little improvements in our kicking game, some improvements in attack, huge improvements in defence,” he said.

“We’ve been a bit patchy with some of our kicks, a bit patchy with some of our attack, but if you’re patchy in defence that puts you under enormous pressure.

“Fear of what Leeds can do to you, we saw what they can do last week – their 40 minutes against Hull was as good as anything we’ve seen so far, expect maybe for South Sydney.

“It just shows what they can do, and fear probably helps you along the way. You need to be good, you need to be on it.

“We were on it tonight and that was there from the start of the game and fortunately we were able to keep it for just about all of the game.”

Smith now wants to see a repeat against St Helens on Thursday.

“That’s the challenge for all of us, coming out with huge performances week in, week,” he added.

“We’re going to have to find one again next week, because we’ve got another huge test for us. One we’re looking forward to.”

He was also pleased with Wolves’ wing play at The Halliwell Jones Stadium.

“We had a lot of good contributors,” explained Smith. “Kev Penny, each week we talk about Kev but he deserves it.

“Our wingers against two awesome, world class, wingers, more than held their own.

“Some of that was down to us, but Leeds were off a little bit tonight there too, compared to what they’re on.

“Matty’s a super carrier of the ball, whether he’s playing full back or wing he loves to get out of there. Opponents know what he’s about to do, too.

“They know when he goes to dummy half. He takes some doing, he’s very good at it.

“We had some good tactics that worked for us well, certainly some of that revolved around Matty carrying the ball.”