SAINTS boss Justin Holbrook expressed his pride after seeing his side pull off a gutsy win at Warrington.

In a bruising encounter, in which Saints lost young hooker Aaron Smith after only three minutes, Holbrook's side rallied from a 6-0 deficit to take the spoils.

The 21-10 victory pushes Saints eight points clear of the second-placed Wolves at the Super League summit.

Afterwards Holbrook said: “It was as good as it could get for me. It was the toughest game I have been involved in.

"Warrington didn’t give an inch and obviously I am really proud of our boys who did the same.

“You are never going to get many opportunities in those sorts of games so to finish the game the way we did, I am extremely proud of my side that is for sure.

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“We hung in there for much of that game with blokes playing much longer minutes than usual and it was a huge win for us.

"The key for us was being patient.

"We had a couple of close ones earlier – Regan Grace put a foot out and you had the Matty Lees juggle under the sticks.

"That was the pleasing thing – we never let that put us off our game and we finished strong.

"Warrington came with some good intent and ready to play and they played a better first half than us, but I thought we finished the first half better which was pleasing because we were on the back foot for a fair bit in that half.

"Matty Lees was huge – he went on after 25 and stayed and would still be playing if it was still on."

Saints levelled the scores after Warrington had been temporarily reduced to 12 men following the sin-binning of Jack Hughes for a shoulder to the head of Tommy Makinson.

Asked if that was a turning point Holbrook replied: "We were starting to lift our intensity at the back end of the game – If we were able to make it happen without the sin-binning I am not sure.

"It was a tough game – but the beauty of the way we are playing this year is that we are ok with that.

"That is the big point of difference on last year – we might not have been. We may have tried to overplayed things and tried to dominate, but today we were ok with it against quality opposition.

"To win like that was a good sign – it was a tough game and we had to do it."

Saints' tries came from Percival, Luke Thompson and Alex Walmsley, with Lachlan Coote kicking three goals and a drop goal.

More than 3,000 Saints fans packed the away end in a 14,211 crowd.