Trailing 24-6 in the first half, the Wolves looked to be heading for another shock defeat against the lowly Tigers but they cut the gap to 12 points shortly before half-time and then turned the game round superbly in the second half.
The Tigers levelled at 30-30 with 15 minutes left but late tries from Mick Higham, with his second, and Joel Monaghan kept Warrington just one point behind the Giants with four games left.
“Hang on to the ball and you’ll score tries was what I told the players at half-time. Whichever side hung onto it scored,” said Smith.
“The weight of possession against us in the first half was just enormous. Castleford are a terrific attacking side and we didn’t have our fair share of ball in the first half. I was quite pleased we were within 12 points of them at half-time.
“We were a bit flat early in the week for a few days in training after our Challenge Cup defeat. Today was about character for us and I thought we showed bucket loads of it.
“I was really pleased with the character we showed to fight back and change the momentum of the game.
“The momentum was fully on Castleford’s side in the first half and to wrestle that back into our favour took some character.
“I am really pleased and proud of our players the way they hung in there. It wasn’t my half-time talk – the players knew what they needed to do and they did it in the second half really well.”
Castleford looked set for their first victory over Warrington for four years when they led by 18 points but they were unable to maintain the momentum as they slipped to their third successive defeat.
Tigers coach Daryl Powell was proud of his players’ efforts.
“I thought our boys worked exceptionally hard and for large parts we were the better team,” he said.
“The game flipped a little bit at half-time for a number of reasons and it took us a while to get back into it in the second half.
“We got back into it at to level at 30-30 but next set we gave a 50/50 pass that went wrong and those are the little 50/50s we are getting wrong at the moment and that is what is hurting us.
“Having said that I thought we conceded some soft tries on our own try line in the middle of the field and that was probably the defining factor.”
Powell was disappointed with the try Warrington’s Garreth Carvell scored shortly before half-time when the Tigers were 24-6 up.
“We had defended well on our edges to keep them out and it was a soft try to concede,” he said.
“The first try Warrington scored was ridiculous as well. We’ve got to be better than that.
“In the second half we had a period when we conceded a lot of penalties. I’d question some of them – there are a couple of calls there that are pretty tough on the team.”
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