Paul Wood says Warrington Wolves' Bradford win had been a long time coming

Warrington thumped their fellow strugglers 58-22 on Friday to put recent woes firmly behind them.

Performances prior to the Odsal rout had not been good, with defeats to Salford and Castleford over Easter weekend highlighting the extent of the problems.

But Wood says the players remained positive throughout their poor run and remained confident and remained confident in their ability to dish out the kind of beating that was handed to Bulls.

He said: “It was a great win for us, I think it had been a long time coming really. We have got the ability in the team but we have been lacking in confidence.

”Hopefully with the Bradford win, getting as many points as we did and defending pretty well - although we can improve defensively - it will bring a lot of confidence.

”Hopefully we can snowball and keep it going.

”One of the things was that we scored a couple of tries early on. Against Salford and Castleford we were defending pretty well but we weren’t scoring tries and normally that’s something Warrington aren’t bad at.

”We scored a couple of early tries, did a couple of good defensive sets early on and our confidence just grew from that.

“The game went away from Bradford and we did something to a team that other teams have been doing to us in the last couple of weeks.”

Although he refuses to get carried away, Wood has also been quietly pleased with his own return to form this season.

So far untroubled by the shoulder injury that ruined his 2008 campaign, the27-year-old prop forward has appeared in all 11 of Wolves’ games this season.

Wood’s efforts were this week rewarded with a one-year contract extension, keeping him at the club until 2010, but he knows there is still plenty of room for improvement in his game.

In particular, the Warrington academy product would like to add a touch of flair to his performances.

He said: “One of the bonuses is that I’ve not been injured so far.

“I think I’ve been pretty consistent so far with my form. I think I’ve been going out there and doing my job and making yards.

“But I’m hoping to improve every week and hopefully bring a few more offloads into my game and a few more little plays out the back, which we’re trying to bring in with the forwards, going at the line and passing a bit more when we’re in the opposition half.

”So far I’ve not been doing the magic plays but I’ve been doing some of the tough stuff so I’m pretty happy but I also know I need to improve every week to stay in the team.”