Warrington Wolves saw their play-off hopes all but ended with defeat to Wigan Warriors and Sam Burgess has had his say, giving a tough assessment of his side’s 2025 campaign.
Despite leading 8-6 at the half against the reigning Super League champions, Warrington lost 24-18 with that defeat leaving them four points adrift of the top six, and give if Hull FC beat Salford as expected.
Not only would Warrington have to make up that four or five-point margin, they’ve got a massive points deficit to correct as well leaving their top six hopes in tatters.
Wire were without Matt Dufty for that game against Wigan with Sam Burgess confirming that the full-back had been stood down for a disciplinary issue, however, he would also lament his side’s lack of cutting edge in attack.
Speaking post match, he said: “I thought we had a lot of effort out there, a lot of spirit, but we missed too many opportunities, and they took a couple of kick tries, and they turned the intensity up a little bit in that second half, and we just couldn’t quite go with it.”
In a statement that sums up Warrington’s season somewhat, he explained: “It’s tough because we’re finding ways to lose rather than finding ways to win at the moment, so we’ve got to fix a few things up.”
“Story of our season” – Warrington Wolves coach bemoans patchy play
One of the biggest reasons why Warrington lost was their lowly 58% completion rate with many of those sets falling apart whilst on the front foot and Burgess noted the inability to ‘ice chances’ when asked about it.
He explained: “We tried hard (to ice chances in attack) but sometimes that’s not enough. They’ve got great players and I don’t think they had too many chances, but what they had, they took.
“I think we missed a couple in the first half and we had too many cheap outs. We had four or five red zone errors and some tough moments really but I thought we were good in a lot of patches, but it’s been the story of our season.”
Whilst Warrington face a very steep climb to make the six, a three-game run of Catalans, Huddersfield and Salford could inspire hope and Burgess explained that the Wolves have to do to kick on for the final six games.
“I think there’s certainly a couple of things we can improve on tonight,” he claimed, adding: “The effort is there, but like I said, we need to bring that every week. It should be a given, it should be there every day.
“We’ve just got to tidy up a little bit of things with the ball. Defensively, we were a little bit more sound, the tries that they scored barring the first one, they had to work for them, so we’ll work from that.”
FT with @ResultingIT
The visitors take the points pic.twitter.com/xYaD4ttVXk
— Warrington Wolves (@WarringtonRLFC) August 8, 2025
