Warrington Wolves hit with major blows ahead of new season

Warrington Wolves came up short in their final pre-season friendly against Leigh Leopards as they lost 28-12 in Joe Philbin’s testimonial.

The result left fans concerned and Sam Burgess disappointed. But there are wider concerns for the Wolves moving into the new Super League season.

After injury woes emerged last week, more have emerged after last night. After the game, Burgess explained some of the substitutions he made was the plan as he spoke to Leigh’s official website:

“Yeah, we had two 13s out just first half, second half sort of thing.”

Then he identified a number of injury concerns:

“Lachlan is alright, he just had a knock on his elbow, I sent his hand and now he’s okay, he’s good to go back on. Probably Luke Thomas, looks like he’s got a knee injury, not sure quite what that is yet but hopefully it’s not too bad.”

A surprise absentee was Matty Ashton and on him, Burgess said: “Yeah, he just had a niggle in his knees. I mean, I didn’t want to risk anything with a round of wood just around the corner. Yeah, he’d have played if it’s round one.”

Sam Burgess wants Warrington Wolves to learn lesson

Burgess also said that he wanted his side to learn lessons from the defeat. A concerned Burgess said:

“I don’t know, we had some good moments but we just weren’t willing to get in the grind as much. Leigh were brilliant, I thought they had middle but I like I say they were really strong, dominated the game really. We’ll take a great lesson out of it, we’ll take something from it.”

The Wolves start the season away at Catalans Dragons in a big match between two teams being tipped for success in 2024.

Catalans won their latest friendly against an All Stars team from the French Elite One Championship putting them away 88-6 in an incredible scoreline that seems unbelievable to see in pre-season.