BURGESS Q&A: Building, Salford priorities and young prop duo
Having picked up a crucial victory over Hull FC on Saturday, he is more interested in seeing his side take steps forward in terms of performance having looked 'a bit more like themselves' in Round 16.
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Victory over Super League's financially stricken bottom club will take The Wire – temporarily at least – to within a point of the play-off spots, with nearest rivals Hull FC and Wakefield Trinity both playing on Saturday.
Their hosts are conceding an average of just under 44 points per game, leading many to see this as an opportunity for Burgess' side to get their attack firing and boost their points difference, which is vastly inferior to all of the sides above them.
However, he says closing that particular gap is absolutely not in his mind as he called on his players to pay their opponents the respect they are due.
Here is what Burgess said to the media during this week's pre-match press conference…
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Q: Looking back at Saturday, was that more like the Warrington Wolves you know and expect?
SB: It certainly looked a bit more like us but we're still a long way from where we need to be.
Parts of our game were a little bit better – I think that was only the second time George, Sneyd and Duff have played together in the last 12 weeks, and Duff and George had only played together once in that time and that was Wembley.
Hopefully, we can keep those guys together and start getting a bit of consistency within our group.
It was a step forward, but we've got a way to go yet.
Q: Does it give you a platform now to kick on?
SB: I'm not getting carried away, and we're doubling down.
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We've got a little block before a break in a few weeks, so we're going hard at it.
We'll try and nail a few little bits of our game and see where it takes us.
Saturday's win over Hull FC kept Wire's play-off hopes alive (Image: Richard Walker)
Q: It was an important win for a lot of reasons but with it being your last home game for six weeks, was making sure your home crowd left on a high note a factor?
SB: I didn't quite realise how long it would be, so it was nice to get the win there for that reason.
Our fans travel really well anyway but with there not being a home game for a while, I'm sure more will follow us around in the next few weeks.
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We'll look forward to seeing them on the road, but it's always nice to get a win at the Halliwell Jones.
Q: People are going to throw this fixture at you and say 'finally, you get to play Salford' but is this one of those 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' fixtures for you?
SB: It's another chance for us to improve, regardless of who we're playing.
For us, we need to work on our game and we've got things we really need to tidy up that we're really working hard on.
It doesn't matter who we're playing this week, not a lot would have changed for us. That's the way it is.
Huddersfield were in the same boat as Salford a couple of weeks ago – they had only won one game.
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We'll just worry about and focus on our own team and getting our best foot forward in the game.
We're not going to change our style of play just because it's Salford – we're going to play our style and try to solve different problems that come our way.
We'll probably see some unstructured things that we'll probably have to manage.
Q: They're obviously conceding a lot of points – other clubs have climbed in and pumped up their points difference. Is that a consideration?
SB: No.
We've got figure our game out and the outcome will be the outcome.
We're just chasing a performance whatever the outcome will be on the back of that, we'll wait and see.
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Q: Luke Thomas has played the last couple of games for you – his first Super League minutes for the club in more than two years.
Have you been pleased with what he's brought and does he have a chance to nail down a spot in your 17 now?
SB: Everyone loves Thommo around the place – he's a lovely lad and tries his backside off to be the best version of himself.
He trains hard and is no trouble, so I like him around the club.
He offers a lot and he's only going to get better. He's done a decent job for us.
Luke Thomas has come off the bench in Warrington's last two matches (Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
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Q: You had Tom McKinney as your 18th man on Saturday – he's someone that's generating a lot of excitement within the club and he's a big body.
How close is he to making his debut?
SB: I don't know but we're trying to expose him to a little bit more.
He trained with us in pre-season for about six weeks, so he's comfortable around the guys and he's been showing a bit of promise in the reserves games.
We just wanted to expose him to the environment and see if we can push him through a bit quicker, but there's a bit of work between now and then for Tom.
There's a few things in his game that he needs to work on – there's no doubt he can do a job for us but when he comes in, we want him to be able to stay in.
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Q: You've obviously got Sam Stone here on loan from Salford, while Dan Russell is over there on loan and both are able to play on Friday.
It's not uncommon in rugby league but it does create a weird dynamic – have you leant on Sam at all for any info?
SB: No, not at all.
We're looking more at ourselves and what we can improve on to get our performance a little bit better.
I'm not really used to these kinds of deals as they don't really happen in Australia so it is a bit of a funny situation.
Sam Stone will face parent club Salford for the first time since leaving on Friday (Image: Neil Ashurst/P&B Pictures)
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