Wolves duo hail Cardiff character
6:26am Thursday 8th May 2008
ADRIAN Morley and Paul Cullen have praised the character Wolves displayed in their comeback win against Huddersfield in Cardiff on Saturday.
Wolves trailed 22-6 at half time but recovered to win 36-34 at Millennium Magic.
Morley admitted that Wolves allowed Huddersfield to get on top in the first half after getting carried away with a good start, which saw Michael Monaghan score the game's opening try.
But the skipper felt the fact they recovered was a promising sign of the team's mental strength.
"Obviously we were delighted with the two points," he said.
"I thought we started the game well and then when we scored the try we thought it was going to be like that all game and went away from doing the hard stuff.
"But Huddersfield played particularly well if you look at their ball control. I think they only dropped one ball in the whole first half.
"We couldn't get out of our half, their field position was great in the first half.
"At half time we really had to get together and get a plan of attack.
"It was just the fact we had so much field position, we knew if we stood a chance of winning we had to get better field position, complete our sets and get the kick in.
"The second half was a totally different game.
"A lot can be said about a team's character when it comes back from deficits like that.
"We were obviously very pleased with the win and I think we can really build on that.
"It was great character and courage shown by the boys.
"Teams need that and if we're going to do anything this year we'll need more performances like the second half."
Such a match must be stressful from a coach's point of view but Cullen said: "It's simply an exciting life. That's the way I look at it. I love every second of it.
"It's all right when things are going all right for you but you have to find something special when things aren't quite right.
"We prepared very well and started the game well with a great try.
"The threat of our right edge opened up some concern for Huddersfield. They were flying across the field to look at Briers, Westwood, Gleeson and Hicks and Michael Monaghan exploited that with great skill.
"We started very sharply then unfortunately we put the ball down quite bizarrely and unexpectedly.
"You've got to defend our try line for 15 or 20 minutes, the Huddersfield kicking game was excellent and kept putting us back in the in-goal.
"We were in there and couldn't get out for about 20 minutes.
"To take a bashing like that and come back was quite remarkable."