Warrington Wolves chief highlights key difference between Sam Burgess and Daryl Powell

Sam Burgess signed an extension on his Warrington Wolves contract after just 23 games in charge of the club and now CEO Karl Fitzpatrick has explained the key reason why Burgess has had so much success.

It was a brave call by Warrington to hand the job to Burgess given that he had no head coach experience at such a level, only serving as an assistant at South Sydney and a head coach in the lower Australian tiers.

However, it’s a gamble that has paid huge dividends with Warrington flying in 2024, making the Challenge Cup Final and leading Super League prior to their loss to Hull KR.

The club’s CEO has now revealed one of the most extraordinary things about the success under Sam Burgess, the fact that he’s doing so with a very similar squad to the one Daryl Powell took on a seven-game losing streak before his sacking.

Fitzpatrick explained to BBC Radio Manchester: “You look at the squad now and you look at the squad that we had last year, there’s not a great deal of change or difference in the main proper squad.

“Of course, we’ve got a bit of quality here and there, obviously Fitzgibbon’s come in, there’s Musgrove, Sam Powell who’s been fantastic, but by and large it’s the squad that Daryl had, which shows how Sam has kind of galvanised and put belief into this group of players that we see are getting the rewards.”

A key indicator of that of the 17 who lost to Wakefield Trinity in 2023 in Powell’s last game in charge, Sam Burgess had 10 of them play in the game where Wire hammered Wigan just over a week ago.

Why Sam Burgess has been such a success at Warrington

As referenced, Sam Burgess was a shock appointment for Warrington but Karl Fitzpatrick explained why they deemed him worthy of the job.

He explained: “We did our due diligence and spoke to some of the players he worked with at South Sydney, spoke to some of the coaches he worked with and it all came back with basically exactly what he’s delivering at the minute, that the players would want to run through a brick wall for him.

“He did a little bit in the State of Origin camp and Matthew Johns phoned me up and said he’s never seen a coach have an impact on players like Sam Burgess.”

He also claimed that there had been no surprise from them in terms of the success that Sam Burgess had had, explaining that the early signs in pre-season were there of a coach who would galvanise a team.

“We’re not surprised by what he has delivered. I’ve stood up in front of our supporters in preseason and I couldn’t promise them success but what I could promise is that we would have a team that we could be proud of, that the community of Warrington can be proud of.

“He’s made us tougher, the resilience and defence but it’s the relationship and the belief that he has in the players which I think has really really got us firing.”