WOLVES head of coaching and rugby says the embarrassment of Monday’s defeat to Castleford was a driving force behind last night’s crushing victory at Bradford.

The turnaround was spectacular as Warrington put the 28-6 home defeat against Cas behind them to record their biggest ever win at Odsal in Super League.

Chris Hicks scored a hat-trick and kicked 18 points, while Lee Briers made a spectacular return from injury, at the centre of everything good for his side.

And Smith praised the reaction of his players following a disappointing Easter weekend.

He said: “They had a good start and played well, I’m pleased for them.

“It builds a bit of confidence hopefully and we can hopefully build on that.

“We played some very attractive rugby league right from the start and carried on with it most of the way through.

“We just tried to freshen them up during the week.

“The coaching staff have done a great job with them this week.

“Embarrassment and determination to get some points out of the three games was probably a driving force.”

Smith was not surprised that Bradford struggled to get going.

The Australian believes Bulls were suffering the effects of a sequence of three games in eight days, just as his team struggled with two games in four days over Easter.

While Wolves’ flat performance came against Cas on Monday, Bradford ran out of steam following a 10-6 win against Leeds and a narrow 24-22 defeat to Wakefield last weekend.

Smith said: “That’s the third game in eight days and everyone’s going to have some flat performances at some stage over that time period. Bradford had theirs tonight.

“They put in a tremendous performance at the same time last week and came up with a really good victory and a great effort over the champion team.

“A week ago they were very good and they could have won their other game as well. To come out with a flat performance is not unusual.

“We had one on Monday, we were very flat on Monday.

“Then to come out and put in a good performance was pleasing. One out of our three games was good.”

But Smith says his side cannot afford to spend too much time celebrating their impressive win, with one eye on next Sunday’s clash with Huddersfield at The Halliwell Jones Stadium.

He said: “It’s a new week next week.

“Hopefully we’ll get a bit of confidence from it, our attack hasn’t been great so it’s nice to put some good attack together.

“Our next game is in nine days time against arguably the form team.

“Huddersfield are in great form and they’re going to be a real challenge for us so we’ll look forward to getting ready for that one.”