DARYL Powell expressed particular delight with his Warrington Wolves side’s work without the ball during their pre-season victory over Leigh Leopards.

During a torrid 2022, The Wire’s defence was a particular disappointment but the early signs are that could be about to change this time around.

They can expect sterner tests of course, but Powell can afford to be pleased with what he saw from his side in terms of keeping the opposition out.

They were caught out twice – Josh Charnley’s try saw them opened up by a scrum move while Gareth O’Brien’s score came after Tom Nisbet capitalised on some slack defence in the middle third.

Aside from that, though, they answered every question asked to leave Powell cautiously optimistic.

“As a run-out, I thought it was perfect. It was a real challenge,” he said of his side’s 22-10 victory.

“We started a little bit sloppy and invited a lot of pressure on ourselves, but I thought we defended great.

“We were really tough, we had great line speed and a lot of drive tackles taking ground off Leigh. They’re strong and beat Leeds the other week.

“Conditions were tough – we had to battle our way out of a tough game and we did a great job of it.

“I didn’t see the try just before half time but the one we conceded from a scrum was a bit loose from our right edge. Apart from that, I thought we dominated defensively.

“They threw a fair bit at us and we were on our line quite a bit as we put ourselves under pressure, but it was a stand-out defensively.

“The conditions made it a little bit easier but we had a real intensity about us. Our middle unit really got after Leigh and that was pleasing.”

With the ball, there was some expected ring rust for their first run of the year with new combinations bedding in.

Their bid to sustain pressure before the break was punctuated by errors at key moments but in the second half, they cleaned up their act with George Williams to the fore.

Daryl Clark and Peter Mata’utia touched down after the interval before Ben Currie marked his Testimonial match with the evening’s final try.

“We’ll certainly play a lot better with the ball, but we found a way in the second half,” Powell said.

“We broke the game up a little bit differently after speaking about it at half time. Some of our quality players found a way over the line.”

On Williams’ display, the head coach said: “He's dangerous – he started the game a little bit off but from then on, he was great and in the second half he was outstanding.

“Our left edge was good – Ben Currie had a really strong second half.

“Drinky (Josh Drinkwater) controlled the game in that second half – his kicking game put us in some great positions.