Wakefield boss Smith loses out to brother at Belle Vue

It was Smith’s fifth game in charge and they have won only one of those, but Warrington are the first team to have scored 40 or more points against Wakefield under the Australian’s coaching.

“I thought we progressed and regressed a bit,” Smith reflected afterwards.

“We committed some woeful errors in attack and two of our most experienced players, Kevin Locke and Jordan Tansey, came up with errors they would not normally make.

“They are inexcusable really and gave 12 points away early on. But we made defensive errors at some stages as well and that was across the board.

“I feel encouraged by much of what went on, but certainly not enough to trouble Warrington on the scoreboard.”

Wakefield were crushed 80-0 at Warrington in April, before Smith – who is the older brother of Wolves coach Tony – took charge.

The Wakefield chief added: “I thought Tony’s boys pretty much took up from where they left off last week (a win over Wigan) with their defence.

“They were very strong defensively and I think we did reasonably well in the end to reduce them to some errors in the second half and put a bit more back on their plate.

“It was not nearly enough to win the game, but we asked some questions of them.”

Smith praised one of the in-goal judges for a series of decision he advised referee Phil Bentham on during yesterday’s game.

But he also claimed Wakefield, both before he took over and since, have been on the wrong end of crucial calls from match officials.

“It need to be addressed,” he said.

“The calls today had nothing to do with us winning and losing, but it has got to stop, this business of not giving the team on the bottom its due.

“I’ll be doing whatever I can from here on in to make sure there’s a loud noise made when it’s not done well.

Smith said he was “not disappointed” with Bentham’s performance yesterday.