Warrington Wolves season preview 2011

By Ged Scott
BBC Sport

Tony Smith was a Super League title winner with Leeds Rhinos in 2007

It is not even two years since Tony Smith walked into Warrington in March 2009 and began his quest to fill a rather bare-looking trophy cabinet.

So far, the highly-respected Aussie's Wolves side have responded superbly with two Challenge Cup triumphs.

The second of them last August was a particularly stunning effort to overwhelm Leeds 30-6 - an improvement even on their performance in beating Huddersfield 25-16 a year earlier.

But the former Huddersfield and Leeds coach, who still lives in Yorkshire, has now run out of former teams to beat at Wembley.

And his mission this season must surely to be to bring a first-ever Super League title to the Halliwell Jones.

Smith has lifted the Super League crown himself - with Leeds in 2007, in his final season before leaving to become Great Britain coach.

But Warrington have not won the league title since their back-to-back Championship wins in the days of the legendary Brian Bevan back in 1954 and 1955.

And maybe they are the side who could run champions Wigan closest in 2011.

As an indication of how much the New South Wales-born former Great Britain and England coach thinks his squad needed improving, Smith has made just two major changes.

Goalkicking proved a comparative weakness last season as Lee Briers and Ben Westwood shared duties.

But Smith may have solved that problem as long ago as last April when he agreed a deal to sign Huddersfield's Australian full-back Brett Hodgson.

The 2009 Man of Steel is now set to put on a Warrington shirt alongside the second, and most contentious, of Wolves' two main close season signings, Joel Monaghan, who resigned from Canberra Raiders after he was photographed in a compromising position with a dog at their end-of-season party.

Not everyone might share the Australian international's sense of humour. But there is no doubt that the five-times-capped 28-year-old, younger brother of Warrington hooker Mick, knows how to play.

And, while he cheerfully admits that he is likely to come in for dog's abuse from opposing fans, he is clearly the sort to revel in the banter.

"Everyone knows what went on," he told BBC Radio Manchester. "But I'm a pretty light-hearted type of fellah.

Joel Monaghan joins older brother Michael at the Halliwell Jones

"I can take a lot on the chin so it doesn't really bother me too much.

"I'm going to have to expect the opposition fans to come up with a few. But, if they come up with something real good, I'll even laugh so I'm actually looking forward to it."

The arrival of Hodgson and Monaghan actually increases the Aussie count in the Warrington camp following the departure of free-scoring winger Chris Hicks, their three-try hero at Wembley in August.

Hicks was originally set to retire at 33, only to change his mind and take up an offer back down under with Parramatta.

And he was preceded out of the Halliwell Jones exit by another of last season's more reliable regulars, former Leeds and Wigan full-back Richie Mathers, who responded to Hodgson's arrival by signing for Castleford.

But, apart from Hodgson, Monaghan and youngster Ben Hellewell from Bradford, Smith also has a flourishing youth system to plunder at Warrington.

And this season's real test will not so much be one of squad strength but consistency.

Warrington at times took the weaker Super League teams apart in 2010, playing magnificent stuff in putting more than 40 points on the board five times, as well as destroying Huddersfield (an astonishing 60-4 at the Galpharm) and Catalans (54-12) in the Challenge Cup.

But, a week after Wembley, they got edged out of second place by neighbours St Helens by the narrowest of margins.

And, when push to shove came to shove in the play-offs, they failed to come anywhere near their Wembley high, and buckled.

After scoring two tries in the first six minutes to stun St Helens, they ended up losing 28-12.

And they were then put out in the next round by Smith's old club Huddersfield, who got their revenge for that Challenge Cup stuffing.

But this time round, if they can maintain their challenge throughout the league campaign, the signing of two more mentally tough Aussies might just help them keep their nerve in the play-offs.