Sam Burgess on Warrington Wolves’ injury situation and Hull KR preparations

Sam Burgess will have been assessing his Warrington Wolves squad closely today as he plots out what the next few days might look like. The Wolves go to Craven Park on Friday night as they take on Hull KR for a spot in the Super League Grand Final.

However, the semi-final tie comes just six days after their golden point extra time win over St Helens at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, with Warrington needing to dig deep in order to progress to the second week of the Super League play-offs.

It’s a short turnaround then and Burgess’ preparation time will be minimal, which going into such a colossal contest is hardly ideal, especially given KR haven’t played since the end of the regular season. His time with the group could be made even shorter, though, with the head coach admitting he could be tempted to give his players another day off in the lead up to the game.

“I don’t know yet,” Burgess said, per Love Rugby League, when asked about injuries. “I’ll speak to my medical staff afterwards and go from there.

“It was a really physical, great game to watch for the neutral I can imagine, it was an unbelievable atmosphere and the players delivered. We’ve got a few sore bodies with them down there so we’ll check in with them in the morning, let them have a good night’s sleep.”

On the week ahead, he added: “It starts on Monday. We’ll review and recover it tomorrow and the guys have got to recover.

“We were just talking with the staff, we’ll get a read on how the players pull up and decide how the week ahead looks but not much will change with the content, maybe we’ll just give them an extra day off if they need it.”

Warrington know all about how strong KR can be on their day having lost to them on home soil back in August. They’ll take confidence from the fact they beat the east Hull outfit twice earlier on in the season, of course, but Burgess is keen to see his side step things up after Saturday’s win.

“I think we have to improve on a few things,” he said. “I think we were just a bit off in a couple of areas so we’re certainly going to have to improve.”