When you can ease to an opening day victory and still have room for improvement left in you, it is perhaps the biggest indicator of all as to how high standards are at Warrington this year, especially in the mind of coach Tony Smith.
The Wolves rarely had to get out of first gear, in truth, against a Salford side who, whilst offering plenty of hope and encouragement for the season ahead, never really gave one of the pre-season favourites for Super League XX too much trouble.
With the outstanding Stefan Ratchford pulling the strings, hopes are high that Warrington can finally shrug that Grand Final monkey off their back. A disappointing fifth-placed finish was below their high standards last year, and as far as first outings of the season – which can often be rusty – go, this was a pretty decent marker laid down by the Wolves.
“We’ve got a fair bit of improvement left in us, to be honest,” Smith said. “It was pretty good from us, they gave it a real dig and it took us time to break them down.
We didn’t start the second half how we would have liked, and our kicking game wasn’t great, especially up the attacking end of the pitch.”
Salford had eccentric and lively owner Marwan Koukash cheering on every play from the stands, and had the Red Devils seized on some half-chances early on, it could have been a different outcome, or at least a closer result.
“We created six or seven clean-cut opportunities that you’d expect us to take, and we didn’t take any of them,” lamented coach Iestyn Harris, who is now faced with the prospect of champions St Helens on Thursday night.
Leading 12-0 at the break thanks to tries by Richie Myler and Micky Higham, the Wolves looked comfortable from there on. At one point during the second half, there were more penalties than points, and after Adam Walne was shown a yellow card for persistent offending in the first half, Ben Westwood followed suit for a pretty gruesome challenge on Walne. As a footnote, that is now four yellow cards and one red in just three matches this season.
But much like local rivals Widnes on Thursday, Warrington were not letting their numerical disadvantage affect them, and they extended their lead further when Ryan Atkins touched down to leave Salford facing a mountain to climb in order to rescue anything from the game. Salford hit back, though, through the efficient Jones-Bishop – the first points Warrington had conceded in 218 minutes of action in 2015.
However, that was really the closest Salford came to mounting an unlikely comeback. In the final ten minutes, both sides exchanged scores: after Rhys Evans crossed for Warrington from yet more slick handling, Jones-Bishop notched his second to round off the scoring.
