THERE was nothing vintage about Wolves’ display but you have to admire the team’s tenacity in achieving their seventh win in 10 matches on Saturday.

The players could so easily have felt it was not going to be their night after overcoming injury and refereeing hurdles but still finding themselves 16-6 behind despite pummelling the Hull line for the opening 20 minutes of the second half.

Scoring kicks were not quite landing right, offloads were not sticking and knock ons were glaring but Wolves, with a reshuffled back line after the late withdrawals of Chris Hicks (groin) and Matt King (calf) as well as the return of Lee Briers, were then rewarded for all their hard work in pegging depleted Hull into their own half.

Three tries in 11 minutes put Wolves ahead with seven minutes to go, centre Vinnie Anderson touching down the winner from the right-wing position.

His little switch outside of emergency winger Chris Bridge, together with two decoy runners, opened the way for Jon Clarke to feed Anderson over by the corner flag.

Bridge, who missed the conversion, was close with all his kicks in the absence of regular marksman Hicks but only managed one success. However, that was all that was needed on this occasion with Wolves outscoring Hull four tries to two.

The home side’s two tries only came during an early 10-minute spell in which Garreth Carvell was harshly in the sin bin for successive penalty offences, with referee Steve Ganson appearing to be spurred into action by the intimidating roar of the FC faithful.

Perhaps it was not surprising with five positional changes to the side that beat Featherstone the previous week that Wolves did look a little disorganised with the ball at times.

However, the two returning players, Adrian Morley and Briers, were as influential as ever.

Skipper Morley was a constant menace with his bullet-fire bursts, while Briers played a key part in the first two tries of the second half, kept the pressure on Hull with some accurate kicking and took the sting out of a late Hull rally with a belting high-kick catch.

Boss Tony Smith praised those two and the roles of Bridge and full back Richie Mathers in the victory.

Mathers was safe as houses at the back, produced an early try-saving tackle on Leeds Rhinos’ loan winger Jodie Broughton and provided some good options as an extra half back in attack.

Bridge, who scored one try, also came to the rescue in a nervy final few minutes with a try-saver on Broughton after Wolves did their best to throw the game away with knock ons from Louis Anderson and Chris Riley in their own 22-metre area in the final five minutes.

Match facts

Hull FC 18 Warrington Wolves 16

Wolves: Richie Mathers; Chris Bridge (1t, 1g), Vinnie Anderson (1t), Simon Grix (2t), Chris Riley; Lee Briers, Michael Monaghan; Adrian Morley, Jon Clarke, Garreth Carvell, Louis Anderson, Ben Westwood, Ben Harrison. Subs: Mickey Higham, Paul Wood, Paul Rauhihi, Matty Blythe.

Hull FC: Richard Horne; Mark Calderwood, Richard Whiting (1t), Kirk Yeaman, Jodie Broughton (1t); Danny Washbrook, Chris Thorman; Peter Cusack, Tommy Lee, Jamie Thackray, Ewan Dowes, Mike Burnett, Danny Tickle (4g). Subs: Danny Houghton, Paul King, Dominic Maloney, Josh Hodgson.

Referee: Steve Ganson

Scoring: Whiting and Calderwood trade kicks after a Monaghan loose pass with Whiting eventually touching down, 12mins, Tickle converts, 6-0; Tickle bursts three tackles to put Yeaman away and he hands over to Broughton to score, 15mins, Tickle adds the goal, 12-0; Louis Anderson times his pass perfectly for Grix to break the line and step past Horne, 25mins, Bridge tags on the goal, 12-6; Wolves are penalised for ball stealing and Tickle slots the penalty, 33mins, 14-6; Tickle hits the mark with another penalty, 44mins, 16-6; Briers flicks the ball on for Monaghan to pick up and send Bridge over in the corner, 62mins, 16-10; Briers spots Wolves have numbers on left and picks out Grix to crash over in Calderwood tackle, 66mins, 16-14; Wolves force Hull to drop out and move the ball wide where Clarke uses decoy runners to feed Anderson over by the corner flag, 73mins, 16-18.

Pens: Hull FC 5 Wolves 5

Attendance: 10,997

Warrington Guardian top men: Morley 3pts, Bridge 2pts, Briers 1pt.

Interesting note: Chris Hicks missed a game for the first time since arriving at the club, ending a run of 44 consecutive appearances.