Wakefield Wildcats coach Richard Agar admitted he was a relieved man after his men held out for a welcome 26-22 win over fellow strugglers Salford.
The Wildcats played some delightful rugby league to establish a 22-6 interval lead with the aid of tries from Peter Fox, Dean Collis, Frankie Mariano and Danny Washbrook, while the impressive Danny Kirmond and Paul Aiton had scores disallowed."The game should have been over at half-time," said Agar. "I thought we played some great football in the first half and should have had at least another two tries which would have made the game dead and buried.
"I thought we held on at the end. For the last 15 minutes we were all over the shop defensively. Maybe that's a team that hasn't won too many games this year.
"We'll take the win and have a look at it in the week. I think we reminded ourselves that, when we do the right thing, we do look like a team that has good football in us."
Reds winger Ashley Gibson ran in two late tries to set up an exciting finish and the visitors could have snatched victory, but coach Phil Veivers took little consolation from his side's fightback.
"I didn't think we were that good in the second half either," he said.
"I give them credit for showing the courage and tenacity to try to come back into the game but, other than that, I thought we were poor the whole game.
"In the first half, we never got out of our half. They possibly should have been another two or three scores ahead of us.
"We never had one set down on their goal-line and we scored a try that came from our own goal-line. We completed at less than 50% in the first half.
"The frustrating thing is that we had opportunities to win the game but it's our skill level that's let us down."