Warrington Wolves playing group has let down Sam Burgess in the opinion of Jon Wilkin with the pundit assessing Wire’s “rank year”.
That was how Wilkin described Warrington’s 2025 season after it reached a new low when they lost to crisis club Salford Red Devils 25-12 at home.
Boos rung out around the Halliwell Jones Stadium at full-time as Wire slipped to a fourth defeat in five but this was the worst of the lot, coming against a Salford side who had nine loan players and could be backed at 28/1 pre-match.
Sky Sports didn’t interview Sam Burgess on their broadcast and commentator Mark Wilson took to X to report that the Warrington Wolves boss had “refused to do an interview” with the broadcaster but that he would conduct post-match media at the stadium.
Warrington Wolves fans’ furious reaction after loss to Salford Red Devils
Warrington Wolves’ “rank” 2025 assessed as Jon Wilkin questions players
Pundit Jon Wilkin gave his assessment of the situation, arguing that Burgess’ players are the main culprits for the poor 2025 campaign for Wire.
Wilkin said: “Sam Burgess made a great point last week post-match, he was asked how do you motivate your team and he said, ‘That’s not my job. These are professional people, my job is not to motivate them’, and I get that.”
The ex-Saints man did accept that Burgess does shoulder some responsibility to motivate, however, he circled back to that 23-10 loss to Huddersfield and the player’s performances, stating that they are “letting him down”, in regards to Burgess.
Wilkin argued: “There has to be some pressure on the individuals who went out and played against Huddersfield to deliver. We often pin it on the coach and Sam Burgess, maybe he’s not had a great yet but I’ll tell you what, his players are letting him down.”
Assessing the club’s season, he added: “It’s been a rank year, hasn’t it? We had three of our pundits say they would win the comp when we did our pre-season predictions.
“You could not have seen Warrington not being in the top six. It was unthinkable. We were talking about Leigh missing the top six and how ridiculous does that look when you think of how abhorrent Warrington have been all year.
“They’ve not really ever got it going. The cup saved them.”
Play-offs remain mathematically possible but those hopes are realistically over with Warrington having little but pride to play for in their final three games, though some players and perhaps even Burgess could be playing for their futures at the club.
We are being told @SkySportsRL that Sam Burgess has refused to do an interview with us but will do media https://t.co/gLJc8dcITg
— Mark Wilson (@MarkWilsonRadio) August 29, 2025
