COACH Darryl Van de Velde has been surprised by the way his side have lost their gutsy defensive qualities of late.

The team's impressive run through May and June, which included beating play-off contenders Halifax and Bradford, was built on the back of well organised defending and bruising tackles.

But a run of only one win in eight games has seen some big steps back in terms of the basics.

The coach said on Sunday: "We've shipped nearly 100 points in the last two games and that tells its own story. It's been substandard and you can't do that against sides like Halifax.

"Halifax worked well because we stood off and allowed them to. You can't let a side like that put you under pressure because they've got too many quality players who know how to hurt you.

"Our players lacked commitment. It showed in the tackle and that's very disappointing.

"I can accept it when we lack the talent but when we lack the commitment, that's something else.

"We're wracked with injuries at the moment but that doesn't mean we don't have to try. We've got supporters out there to think of and there are players with contracts to fight for. We've got to start earning our money."

Van de Velde said he could hardly recognise his team compared to the one that beat Halifax back in May.

He added: "It's a long time since that win and the side that day had a lot more commitment to the one we saw today. This side gave away soft tries and didn't put in the tackles when they needed to."

The coach is also concerned about the way the side continues to miss out in too many scoring opportunities.

He said: "But we're still not making the pressure count when we should do. We've got to turn possession into points if we want to win more games."

Warrington actually crossed the whitewash six times but Mark Forster had two tries disallowed and Pechey had another ruled out.

Van de Velde said: "We had a few tries disallowed but then so did they. There's no point feeling hard done by because it didn't make the difference when it came to the result. We were outplayed across the field."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.