WARRINGTON Wolves’ academy side will “learn some harsh lessons” from their defeat at St Helens on Friday, head coach Mark Smith said.

The Wire were beaten 28-4 as they missed the chance to apply pressure to Saints and Wigan Warriors at the top of the table in the curtain-raiser fixture to the men’s Super League clash between the clubs.

All of Saints’ points came as part of a nightmare first half for the visitors, who failed to respond after Matthew Penketh’s try gave the hosts the lead against the run of play.

Kian McGann, Jake Davies, Ellis Anderson and Joel Kilgannon followed Penketh over the line to effectively win Saints the game before half time.

There was a response of sorts from Warrington after the break as they scored the second half’s only points courtesy of Frank Sergent.

The winger touched down at the end of a rapid break up-field started by Cai Taylor-Wray and continued by centre James Duffy, with the ball then worked out wide for Sergent to score in the corner.

However, the damage was long since done and Smith insists his players must take the lessons away from the experience.

There was physical damage done too with Wire losing three players to injuries. Two of them were failed HIAs, meaning 18th man Oliver Evans was required.

“A promising start to the game where the team stuck in the grind, going set-for-set with St Helens and progressively winning the arm wrestle until the opposition were then able to score against the run of pressure that had been applied,” Smith said.

“This then led to an unacceptable part of the game where we started compounding one score with penalties and giving up possession cheaply and defending more, which then allowed the opposition to score 28 unanswered points due to not executing the small ‘one per cent’ efforts and lack of resilience on our goal line.

“The team will review the game this week and some harsh lessons will need to be learnt to fix these areas up before our next outing at Castleford Tigers in a fortnight.”

The aforementioned trip to Castleford on Saturday, August 3, is the first of the three regular-season games remaining for the academy team – Leeds Rhinos visit Victoria Park on August 17 before a visit to Wigan Warriors on August 31.

Despite Friday’s loss, they remain third in the table but fourth-placed Castleford have now moved level on points with them, with Leeds two points further back.

Wolves: Cai Taylor-Wray; Lachlan Webster, James Duffy, Zack Gardner, Frank Sergent; Joe Hickey, Pat Irwin; Charlie McKler, Lewis Barratt, Ben Pearce, Charlie Walker, Kian Stanton, Jake Ramsden. Subs: Daniel Regan, Alfie Mather, James McGuire, Harrison Rigby, Oliver Evans (18th man - used)