Monaghan believes in Wolves' bite - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Monaghan believes in Wolves' bite

14/06/2010 01:37:39 PM Comments (0)

Michael Monaghan believes Warrington Wolves have the strength in depth to go all the way in Super League this season.

Despite missing a host of key players through injury and international call-ups, the second-placed Wolves cruised to a 35-16 victory against Hull KR with ex-Manly hooker Monaghan in stunning form on Saturday.

Adrian Morley, Chris Bridge and Ben Westwood were all on duty for England while Richie Myler, Garreth Carvell and Jon Clarke were out injured.

But Wolves' stand-in players stood up to the test and Monaghan insists the club's squad is strong enough to challenge for both the Super League title and the Challenge Cup in 2010.

"The boys who came in did fantastic and it just shows how strong we are this year," said Monaghan, who won the Lance Todd Trophy for the man of the match in Warrington's Challenge Cup final victory over Huddersfield Giants last August.

"It was a great team win for us - we have people missing but we dealt with that and came through it to pick up the points.

"We had a game plan coming into the match because we knew how strong Hull KR would be and we stuck to it.

"Everyone did their jobs in the team and we can be proud of the victory."

Huddersfield Giants coach Nathan Brown had no complaints as his side slipped to a 30-22 defeat by St Helens.

The Giants were level at the interval but Saints showed their class after the break and Brown was quick to point the finger at his stuttering side.

"Our edge defence was strong but we were poor in the middle," fumed ex-St George chief Brown, who was named as Super League's Coach of the Year in 2009.

"We're not getting consistency across the board and it's probably fair to say the better team won.

"We started a bit slow but got back to 16-16 which showed what we can do if we control the ball.

"I know Saints had some players missing but they still had some decent players," he added.

Meanwhile, Salford City Reds coach Shaun McRae insists his troops need to start picking up points sooner rather than later if their play-off dream is to become a reality.

The Reds slipped to a 34-12 defeat by Hull FC on Friday to leave them six points away from the top eight.

And ex-South Sydney coach McRae believes the Salford players need to stop showing their opposition too much respect.

"We got what we deserved, particularly with the second-half performance," said McRae. "We didn't get enough quality ball.

"After a pretty high-quality first-half performance from both sides, Hull were able to go on but we weren't.

"Some of the pressure that was built on us showed and they were too strong for us and it showed.

"We got Hull FC in good form and full of confidence - we didn't control their big players and if we are going to do well against the top teams, we need to start doing that."

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