A NEED for experience prompted Paul Cullen to limit his use of substitutes during Wolves' 25-24 win against Hull on Sunday.

Wolves - already missing Adrian Morley, Chris Bridge, Richie Barnett and Simon Grix to injury - saw international prop Paul Rauhihi sent to the sin bin for dissent after 14 minutes against Hull and used only one substitute during the first half.

Cullen explained: "That was a reaction to the fact that we had very little fatigue in the first half and we had also lost Paul Rauhihi, I thought very harshly.

"It pleased me that we held our nerve and didn't panic.

"There was a chance that some might have done when we lost Paul Rauhihi in a situation like that and Hull scored two tries immediately after he went off the field.

"There were five enforced changes after round one and what you don't want is any more, to be swapping people around for the sake of it.

"What you need is experience and know how. We are already missing Adrian Morley, Chris Bridge and Richie Barnett.

"We had Martin Gleeson back after a very nasty bout of flu and we had Vinnie Anderson possibly playing at only three-quarter pace recovering from his groin injury.

"What we don't need to do is to throw younger, more inexperienced players in to play against a full-strength Hull side.

"The senior players are very fit and focused and it was a gamble I took that paid off.

"I wanted the guys that are big, fit tough and experienced enough to handle everything thrown at them."