Sam Burgess critical as Warrington Wolves survive London scare

Sam Burgess has argued that Warrington Wolves were “not good enough” as they managed to avoid an upset against London Broncos, winning 34-22 in the end.

The scoreline doesn’t tell the full story of the game with four of those points being added in the dying seconds when Matty Ashton scored an intercept try to register his second of the game and the 100th of his career.

There was also contention around Adam Holroyd’s try whilst London ‘bombed’ three tries of their own according to Mike Eccles, allowing Warrington Wolves to perhaps earn a lucky escape in the capital.

It appears that Sam Burgess was aware of that as he was keen to credit London when speaking to Sky Sports post-game, whilst noting that Wire required improvements for their Magic Weekend clash against Leeds Rhinos next week.

Burgess explained: “Parts of our game we know weren’t good enough but I don’t want to stop crediting what London brought. They brought a bit of energy and they play in a completely different style of rugby than they were at the start of the year and probably with a bit more confidence.

“Mike’s done a great job with the team so although it was a tighter game, you must give credit to London but I’m sure we can improve too.”

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Warrington Wolves not “good enough” claims Burgess

London did enough to stay within touching distance for the majority of the game and with a different bounce of the ball, they could well have won and registered their second straight win after upsetting Catalans last week.

Whilst the Broncos were good, Warrington allowed them to be with the Wolves looking off following their loss to Hull KR last week.

Sam Burgess was clear in that, stating: “Yeah, we weren’t good enough today. The good thing about the group is they’ll know that. I won’t have to say a great deal in the changing rooms. It will be a longer bus ride home than they imagined. It’ll feel a bit longer anyway. They’ll be disappointed with that.

“We gave the players four or five days off, so I can probably look at myself, (and if I should have) got them in a bit earlier. It’s part of our development as a group but as I said we weren’t up to scratch.”

Burgess also confirmed that there was no injury concern for Matt Dufty and that he was brought off to allow him to rest and give talented youngster Cai Taylor-Wray some game time.

“Cai’s a magical player and just trying to get him some game time wherever I can,” Burgess explained.

It wasn’t just Burgess being super critical of his team but the Sky Sports pundits who noted the fact Warrington seemed to get away with one. Former Wolves player Kevin Brown was one of those as he highlighted Wire’s 22 missed tackles.

“The glaring issue is the missed tackles and the fact that they nearly had double the team that they’ve just faced and beaten. Sam Burgess is a proud man and he’s a big coach in defence.

“I think London will look back at that and think ‘If we have only been a little bit more clinical, we could have potentially won this game’ and Warrington will know. I think he’s summed it up perfectly there, London were very good, and Warrington were off today.”