{"id":540101,"date":"2026-04-19T22:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T22:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540101\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T22:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T22:50:16","slug":"warrington-wolves-boss-defends-packs-physicality-as-two-injury-concerns-shared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/540101\/","title":{"rendered":"Warrington Wolves boss defends pack’s physicality as two injury concerns shared"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Warrington\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Warrington Wolves head coach Sam Burgess has defended his forward pack\u2019s physicality after the loss to Catalans Dragons, whilst revealing two injury concerns to key men within that pack.<\/p>\n

Wire were beaten for just the second time this season as Catalans ran out 38-22 winners in Perpignan<\/a>, despite Warrington having taken a 10-0 lead early on and also leading in the second-half.<\/p>\n

A barrage of 28 unanswered points, including a Lewis Dodd hat-trick, saw Les Dracs cruise to a win before a late consolation try came from Max Wood with Sam Burgess left ruing his side\u2019s physicality.<\/p>\n

Despite that, he labelled questions of the pack\u2019s physicality \u2018disrespectful\u2019 when speaking post-match in his presser, shared on the Warrington Wolves YouTube<\/a> channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost the game in a lot of areas tonight, probably more so the physical side,\u201d Burgess explained when beginning his assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must say that I thought Catalans were very good. They played with a lot of energy and they made us pay for it. We had a tough period in the first half and we didn\u2019t manage well out the back of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jazz Tevaga\u2019s sin-bin, Hull KR\u2019s underrated star and very early Man of Steel candidates \u2013\u00a0Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show.<\/a><\/p>\n

Warrington Wolves boss confirms double injury concern in forward pack<\/p>\n

Winger Matty Ashton was sent to the sin bin late in the first half and despite coming through that, Wire then folded from the 50th minute onwards and Burgess attributed the defeat to a lack of energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat period itself wasn\u2019t why we lost but we didn\u2019t manage well out the back of it,\u201d he said of Ashton\u2019s sin bin.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we were 10-0 up, we didn\u2019t quite look ourselves. We didn\u2019t have that same energy that we\u2019ve been bringing but that\u2019s okay. We\u2019ve played eight or nine games now so these things do happen, we just need to get back, reset, and go again.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if he was \u2018confident\u2019 his side could handle packs as big as Catalans, given pre-season questioning of whether the Warrington pack was big enough, Burgess laughed:\u00a0\u201cI think so, yeah. We were up against a good side, I understand your question but I think it\u2019s a bit disrespectful to the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the defeat being their second in their last three Super League games, Warrington still remain just two points off the top of the table and Burgess called for calm.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWhen we win well, we try and stay level, so it\u2019s the same when we lose. We\u2019ll take things out of the game where we can improve, a lot of them are really simple. A couple of effort areas, we weren\u2019t quite pushing as hard off the ball. Defensively, we lost the collision a bit, and I thought Catalans were very good and played with a lot of energy. They\u2019ve two great halves and they made us pay at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also confirmed that James Harrison\u2019s ankle injury will be scanned, with he and Toafofoa Sipley both picking up issues in the physical battle.<\/p>\n

On Harrison he said: \u201cWe don\u2019t know at the moment. It\u2019s an ankle injury so we\u2019ll have to get scans and go from there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to reassess when we get back. We\u2019ll travel back tomorrow (Sunday) and we\u2019ll reassess on Monday or Tuesday and see what we\u2019ve got but we picked up a few bumps tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy didn\u2019t go back on and I think Toff (Sipley) maybe injured that leg again, so we\u2019ll see how they pull up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warrington Wolves head coach Sam Burgess has defended his forward pack\u2019s physicality after the loss to Catalans Dragons,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-540101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}