Sam Burgess is looking forward to seeing how his young Warrington Wolves side will fare in a new environment at Super League Magic Weekend.
Warrington have put a strong focus on their youth and academy system over the last few years and it’s a good job as they’re having to rely on plenty of their young guns given their current injury issues.
For many of those young talents, Saturday’s game at Super League Magic Weekend will mark the biggest occasion of their career to date with well over 30,000 expected at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday.
Asked by BBC Radio Merseyside about that prospect and how he thinks his players will fare, Burgess responded: “We’ll see on Saturday, I think it’s important that we understand the occasion, it’s going to be a little bit different, but once they cross over the white line, it’s business as usual.
“It’s the same game, same rules, same field, so just try and manage all the exterior emotions, and bottle those up so they’re ready for you on the day.”
Their opponents Leigh have had their own fair share of injuries but seem to be coming out the other side and that was something Burgess made note of when previewing the Leopards.
“They’re very ambitious. Playing consistently, I’d say. They’ve had their injury troubles at the start of the year, and they seem to be in a better bill of health at the moment and playing consistent, they’ve got a lot of threat all over the field, so it’s going to be a great challenge for us.”
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Warrington Wolves ready for next challenges of injury-hit season
Like Leigh, Warrington are coming off the back of a strong win but it was a costly one as they lost Arron Lindop, Josh Thewlis and Jordy Crowther to injuries, however, Burgess was keen to praise the Wolves’ adversity.
He said: “To lose three guys, two outside backs, it’s hard to manage over there, and players totally out of position so it’s a very enjoyable win in terms of being able to work together and get the job done.
“It was ugly at times, but we kept turning up, and it’s required. Those games are very important, it doesn’t really matter how you win at times, you might as well get the job done. We’re happy with that, it’ll be a different task for us Saturday, and we’ll need to be a little bit better.”
That game against Catalans was part of a packed summer schedule that sees Wire take on plenty of the top challengers and when asked about just how tough that proposition is, Burgess admitted it’s simply about one game at a time given how frequent injuries have been.
“We’ve got Leigh this week and then we’ll tackle the following game the week after, because, again, we’ve seen how much the team changes, we’ve seen how many things you’ve got to manage, so there’s no point in getting too far ahead of yourselves,” he explained.
“We’ll manage this period, as we’ve always done in my time here. We’ll get on with the job, we’ll make no excuses and we’ll compete hard.”
On that mentality of adapting, Burgess was keen to state that he’d rather have the same squad though he admitted: “That’s just not the real world. It’s a collision sport, and injuries are part of it, so I think that’s why over the course of a season, being the most consistent team, being able to say it’s a great achievement, and it’s extremely hard to do.
“These are ebbs and flows during the season you have to manage, and you need a bit of luck along the way, we’re just hoping that comes our way soon.”
