Warrington Wolves 42 Leeds Rhinos 10, Daryl Powell reaction

The Wire were 42-10 victors over Leeds Rhinos at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, with 30 of their points coming in a rip-roaring first half.

Powell addressed his side's superb opening period while also heaping praise on a number of individual performances.

Here is everything the Wire boss said in his post-match press conference...

Q: You must be a very happy man after watching that?

DP: I am!

In the first half – we were 100 per cent with our completions and we were pretty smart with how we used the ball.

Our middle unit marched us down the field and we were accurate, patient and controlled when we were in good attacking position.

Our half-backs were awesome in that regard but as a team performance, that first half was as good as you’re going to see.

We got rattled a bit by losing Matty Nicholson and it affected our rotations, but I thought we handled it pretty well so I’m really pleased.

Q: You mentioned there that there was some reshuffling and there was an element of square pegs in round holes, but you must have been happy with how you adapted?

DP: We knew Leeds were going to come after us in the second half, play a little bit wider and try some offloads.

I thought we handled all of that well although we conceded a couple of tries that we’d want to stop.

I think the key thing is the lads are so disappointed that we conceded that second try – they were desperate to hold that zero!

When a team gets desperate, sometimes they can open you up but I think the fact they are disappointed with that says a lot about the group we’ve got at the moment.

Q: Sometimes you can sense a performance like that coming – could you feel what was going to happen in that first half during the week or in the warm-up?

DP: Definitely with the way the pre-season’s gone.

Sometimes you can walk into a dressing room and sense that there’s a quiet focus and I get that with these boys.

We didn’t quite have the same first half against Leigh but I could sense it then. We’ve got some real experienced boys here who know how to play the game – you can feel they’re ready to go.

Some lads can just flick a switch and off they go. Paul Vaughan is one of them – I thought he was phenomenal tonight.

Paul Vaughan (Image: PA)

Q: Could you have really asked for a better debut from Paul Vaughan?

DP: I had to leave him out there a bit longer than I would have wanted to, and probably a bit longer than he would have wanted too!

He had to really dig deep but he did that. Everything is for the team and he did a phenomenal job.

James Harrison as well with the minutes and work he does for us – he’s probably one of those players that you may not see as much of as someone like Paul Vaughan but he is such a quality player.

For the minutes he was out there today, it was an awesome effort.

Q: It’s been a difficult week for the club with what happened with Josh McGuire, so how happy are you with how the players have dealt with that both in the immediate aftermath and during the game?

DP: It was always going to be a pressure game tonight – we had to show we were something a little bit different.

There’s a lot of people talking about pressure and there was a bit of that tonight, but the players handled it really well.

The Josh McGuire situation – we haven’t really talked about it that much. We just got on with it and the boys have been class.

Q: Can Josh McGuire still add value to the group while he’s not playing?

DP: He’s an experienced boy, he understands the game and he rubs off on other people.

We’ll absolutely keep him very tightly involved. He will play a big part in what we do over the next six weeks.

Q: Was Thomas Mikaele’s performance an indicator of the difference between last year and this?

DP: He’s really come on since Christmas in terms of his drive, energy and determination so we decided to start him tonight.

He’s started games in the NRL with Wests Tigers, he’s a quality player and he looked good I thought.

He carried the ball strong and his first stint in particular was outstanding.

I thought Joe Bullock was great off the bench as well – he did a really good job for us.

Joe Bullock earned praise for his display off the bench (Image: PA)

Q: You mentioned the pressure that was on – is that the biggest takeaway from this game? The fact they knew the pressure was on and they performed?

DP: There’s caveats to that – there’s a few lads in there who didn’t deal with what happened last year.

They’re fresh and have just come in and got on with things but the other guys are fully aware of where we’ve been and what we needed to do.

They handled it so well and it’s great signs that we’ve got a mature group who know what to do and when to do it.

Q: You more than anyone must have been desperate for that performance and result?

DP: 100 per cent. I’ve felt from Week One of pre-season that it looks different and feels different.

The boys go about their work in a different way and there’s high-quality influences in there that we’ve recruited.

George (Williams) then comes in after Christmas and he’s been phenomenal – I thought he looked great again tonight.

His combination with Josh Drinkwater is balanced and the team looks balanced.

Rich Marshall has done a great job defensively – we’re super-aggressive and we get after teams. The two games we’ve played so far, we’ve been super-aggressive and only conceded 10 points in each.

That takes a bit of doing but we’ve got after it.

Q: You’ve set a very high bar now, haven’t you?

DP: We have, but we wanted to do that.

There’s high standards within the group and we have worked really hard.

We wanted to show that we’ve changed things and as a starting point, we’ve achieved that but consistency is a different thing.

What we’re after now is consistency week after week.

We rattled Leeds tonight and they didn’t handle it as well as they would have wanted to, but some teams will. It’s then about how we deal with those situations.

We’ve got to be able to manage all of them.