TONY Smith insists Warrington Wolves are desperate to get back to winning ways next week, regardless of whether a Super League play-offs spot is still in the offing.

Wolves return to action at home against Wigan Warriors on Friday following back-to-back Super 8s defeats to Leeds Rhinos and Castleford Tigers.

It leaves Smith’s side six points off fourth spot ahead of tonight’s games with five to play.

“I haven’t done the maths and regardless, I’m not in to whether it’s possible or not,” said Wolves’ head of coaching and rugby about making the play-offs.

“When you play rugby league you play to win. So whatever the games you’ve got ahead of you, you go out to win them.

“I don’t care whether you’ve been promoted, relegated or are playing for a final, when you play rugby league you go out and you try to win each and every game.

“That’s what we will be doing again next week. We’ll be going out to try and beat Wigan next Friday night.

“Nothing changes in terms of our eagerness to go and perform well and win games. Whatever the mathematicians work out, whether we can or we can’t, we’ll be going out to try our hardest.

“It’s pride in your jersey and pride in a rivalry between two clubs.”

A late Liam Finn drop goal condemned Wolves to a third successive defeat, including a Challenge Cup semi-final exit, after fighting back to 16-16 at Castleford.

Richie Myler added to his first-half try with a length-of-the-field score while a Kevin Penny try and two conversions from Chris Sandow cancelled out the lead Justin Carney-inspired Tigers had built.

But Smith says he felt his side did not do enough to win the game at The Mend-A-Hose Jungle. “I didn’t think we played great in the second half,” he added. “I thought we were good in the first half, wed dominated territory we just didn’t dominate scoreline. They got in our end a couple of times and took their opportunities.

“We probably had more field position to create more. Second half I thought we weren’t great, we were a bit sloppy and bit all over the place.

“We did ok to fight back to get a draw. I said to my boys I don’t think we deserved to win, whether we pinched a draw out of it or not, probably would have been a fair indication.”

Wolves were 44-6 winners at the same ground three weeks ago, but Smith admits they were lacking the same enthusiasm on Thursday night.

“Enthusiasm is a huge thing and they out-enthused us,” he explained. “They didn’t do anything real special in my eyes.

“I thought they were very enthusiastic carrying the ball, they didn’t challenge us a whole lot. There was a little passage of defence where we were sloppy.

“Other than that it was pretty basic footy, but we threw some pretty basic stuff at them too. Enthusiasm and willingness to get there, they edged it.

“It can happen on a day, you can have some flatness. We had a couple of boys who were a bit flat, a bit below their best.

“I thought our two front rowers were really good, (Chris) Hilly and Ash (Sims), they had loads of energy. There were a few others a bit down on our energy – that can be all sorts of things.

“When we went through our five or six-week period not so long ago, we were out-enthusing teams, we were playing quicker than they were we were getting off the ground quicker than they were.

“We were going with the roll of the game, the roll of the game wasn’t going our way and sometimes it’s hard to turn that around.

“The other thing for motivation was we gave them a good hiding here not long ago, I remember as a child getting a good hiding and it was a great motivator for me – it was a great motivator for them.

“They were beaten well and truly three weeks ago, they came out and they were fighting for their crowd and support and for every little penalty they got, so good on them and congratulations and good luck.”