{"id":589270,"date":"2026-05-17T17:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589270\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:08:16","slug":"warrington-wolves-boss-gives-reason-for-poor-second-half-against-toulouse-olympique-as-forwards-absence-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/589270\/","title":{"rendered":"Warrington Wolves boss gives reason for poor second half against Toulouse Olympique as forward’s absence explained"},"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 boss Sam Burgess has offered his assessment of his side\u2019s 24-16 victory over Toulouse Olympique yesterday.<\/p>\n

The Wolves raced into an 18-0 lead at half-time, before adding a fourth to go 24-0 up. However, they couldn\u2019t continue their dominance with the French side clawing their way back in the game to make it a tense affair.<\/p>\n

Toby King dotted down twice for the travelling side, whilst Josh Smith and Max Wood also scored tries.<\/p>\n

Toulouse\u2019s Olly Ashall-Bott added a double, with Matthieu Jussaume also getting over the line.<\/p>\n

Burgess believes his side were worn out from an intense few weeks, none more so than their last seven days, where they have had a Challenge Cup semi-final to play before then flying out to France.<\/p>\n

Given those mitigations, the Warrington boss can \u201caccept\u201d that some players were tired, and whilst they still got the win he would have liked to see a better second stanza.<\/p>\n

Speaking post-match, he said: \u201c[It\u2019s] two points, which we are happy with. The first half I thought was okay. Second half, a little bit disappointed with our performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Toulouse showed some spirit, played with some energy, and I just think we looked a little bit tired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can accept it a little bit because of the circumstances, semi-final and travel and everything. I knew we might look a little bit tired at some point, but it\u2019s still two points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burgess explained a common theme during his time at Wire, after each Challenge Cup semi-final, the team haven\u2019t been able to perform as well as they could the following week.<\/p>\n

The boss said: \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to accept that it\u2019s there. I was expecting a little lull, but I thought it would be a bit better in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warrington Wolves boss explains latest on forward duo<\/p>\n

Two players who didn\u2019t feature in France were Joe Philbin and Sam Stone, who both missed out due to minor issues.<\/p>\n

It had already been confirmed by Burgess that Philbin wouldn\u2019t play this week, after batting away \u201charsh\u201d criticism being put on the Wire veteran.<\/p>\n

The Irish international could potentially be back in the side next week against Bradford Bulls, but if not he will be fit for after the Challenge Cup Final.<\/p>\n

Stone meanwhile was an unexpected absence, with the boss explaining why the back rower missed out.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cHe\u2019s fine. He could have played. He\u2019s been carrying an injury for maybe a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just felt it was a good opportunity to give him a break. He\u2019ll play next week.\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 boss Sam Burgess has offered his assessment of his side\u2019s 24-16 victory over Toulouse Olympique yesterday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-589270","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\/589270","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=589270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}