{"id":587513,"date":"2026-05-16T15:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587513\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:54:11","slug":"warrington-wolves-boss-fires-back-at-joe-philbin-criticism-as-injury-confirmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587513\/","title":{"rendered":"Warrington Wolves boss fires back at Joe Philbin criticism as injury confirmed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Warrington Wolves head coach Sam Burgess has responded to questions over fan criticism of prop forward Joe Philbin, defending his player staunchly.<\/p>\n

Philbin, 31, has played his full career at Warrington<\/a> with the Ireland international recently going past 250 appearances for the Wolves.<\/p>\n

During his presser, which has been shared by BBC Radio Merseyside<\/a>, before Saturday\u2019s game against Toulouse, Sam Burgess was asked about fan criticism of Philbin but flipped the question on its head and asked the interviewer how they felt Philbin had fared, the response being: \u201cI think he\u2019s done alright personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burgess agreed as he went on to defend Philbin, stating: \u201cCriticism, we\u2019re not really aware of it, or I\u2019m not, until it gets brought to my attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I think it\u2019s important to ask what everyone else brings.\u201d<\/p>\n

A follow-up question about Philbin did offer a different view as it was suggested that despite intending to make a big impact upon being substituted on, the prop got nervous and made mistakes against Hull KR in the Challenge Cup semi-final.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re being harsh,\u201d Burgess responded before explaining that Philbin will miss out this week but not as a result of performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why we\u2019re talking so much about Joe Philbin. My point is that the more we talk about it, the more (of) an issue it becomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe\u2019s actually not playing this week so I hope no one thinks that\u2019s a performance thing. He\u2019s actually picked up a bit of a bump on his knee so everyone needs to be clear about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warrington Wolves contract renewals not considered yet<\/p>\n

Burgess also was keen to make another thing clear and that was how important Philbin is for Warrington Wolves with the head coach declaring:\u00a0\u201cWe love Joe, we love what he brings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are parts of his game that have really improved and there are parts that he wants to keep working on.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a big part of our group and he\u2019s been here a long time now as well. It\u2019s a pivotal year for him so he\u2019s working real hard off the field on a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 season is so pivotal for Philbin because he is one of several players off-contract and when asked if the prop was someone that he\u2019d like to keep around, Burgess explained that such decisions will be made in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not really making those decisions just yet. We\u2019ve got a couple of things that we\u2019ve got to weigh up so as it stands, we\u2019re not making any decision at the moment. We\u2019re just sitting tight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Challenge Cup reaction, incoming head coach and major signing \u2013 Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/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 responded to questions over fan criticism of prop forward Joe Philbin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-587513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587513","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=587513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}