Warrington Wolves will go ‘back to square one’ in 2026 as they look to rediscover their form, whilst Sam Burgess has also addressed the club’s discipline issues.
Burgess made his comments in a season review posted on the Warrington Wolves’ YouTube channel, a 10-minute video that saw him discuss the ‘disappointing aspects’ of 2025 as well as some of the lessons learned.
Obviously, not making the play-offs and regressing from third to eighth was among the biggest disappointments whilst some of the positives noted included the promotion of youth, whilst the academy side’s unbeaten season and Grand Final victory were other obvious points to build on.
Despite those ‘green shoots’ that Burgess mentioned, there’s no hiding from the fact that Warrington Wolves underperformed and the head coach has admitted that his side must go ‘back to square one’, and embrace what made them such a force in year one.
He explained: “Regardless of what happened in my first year, I’m disappointed with the second year. Some of the lessons that I’ve learnt will mean I’m a much better coach in my third year.”
‘Some things weren’t acceptable’ explains Warrington Wolves boss as 2025 disciplinary issues addressed
Warrington did have bad injury luck with three players suffering season-ending ACL injuries, including England star Matty Ashton, up-and-coming outside back Arron Lindop, and young playmaker Oli Leyland.
Whilst injuries were noted, Burgess refused them as an excuse before also discussing other issues at the club that hadn’t gone as Wire would have hoped.
Player discipline was touched upon with some senior Warrington players such as Matt Dufty and Toby King stood down in 2025 for disciplinary matters, whilst Zane Musgrove was released from the club.
On discipline, Burgess admitted that ‘some things weren’t acceptable’, adding: “I think it’s something we need to be harder on as a club from top down to bottom. When things are going well and you’re winning, you can sort of skim over a few things but standards should be set by players.
“As the head coach, I have what we call acceptable and not acceptable and then it’s up to the players to be policing that. We’ll put a big ownership on developing some of our leaders internally and then keeping our standards high through the pre-season.”
As for 2026 and what the goals are, there are two simple ones and they are ‘absolute improvement from 2025’ and to create a team that Warrington, as a town, can be proud of with Burgess admitting his side fell short of that at times.
He declared: “We want absolute improvement from 2025. I’ve always liked to coach a team that the fans can be proud of and I dare say that some weeks, they weren’t, in 2025.
“We’ll be going back to square one, getting our effort and determination right and success will look like a team that the town can be proud of.”
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