Cullen in tribute to Wolves

Warrington coach Paul Cullen hailed his side's defensive character after the Wolves got their engage Super League season off to flier with a hard-fought 16-10 victory at Wigan.

First-half tries from Richie Barnett and Vinnie Anderson and four goals from the deadly boot of Lee Briers gave the Wolves the points in front of a crowd of 21,693, a record attendance for the opening round of Super League, on a horribly wintry night at the JJB Stadium.

Cullen said: "Defensively I thought we were fantastic. We have got to take great pride in the work we have done. In the first half we defended seven, possibly eight sets on our tryline, and then came away and scored - and I thought mentally we had the game at that point."

Mark Calderwood and David Vaealiki replied for the Warriors but the visitors overcame the loss of stand-off Chris Bridge and new signing Adrian Morley through injury to pick up the two points.

Cullen added: "We handled everything that was thrown at us, including a couple of potentially very serious injuries.

"To lose your stand-off in the opening two or three minutes in a game like this is a huge test - and we handled it manfully.

"Chris Bridge has potentially torn a hamstring and Adrian Morley has potentially fractured an eye socket, but that's the nature of the beast, and it shows how tough this game is."

Warriors coach Brian Noble could not hide his disappointment at the loss following the huge expectation in the town leading up to the game.

Noble felt the calf problem that has dogged new signing Trent Barrett in pre-season was a mitigating factor, as his fledgling partnership with fellow new-boy Thomas Leuluai struggled to get going.

"We're all a bit disappointed," Noble said. "But there is plenty of room for improvement with the ball for us. We looked a bit rusty out there. But our six and seven have only had a week of work together, and I know we'll get a whole lot better than that with the ball."