A closer look at Warrington Wolves' 2023 fixtures

Warrington Wolves can now plot their way through the 2023 season as they aim to make it a much more successful one than this year, which saw them finish second-from-bottom in their worst ever Super League finish.

The Wire will play 27 regular-season games – 13 at home, 13 away and the Magic Weekend clash with Hull FC.

> Click here to see the fixture list in full

Here, we take a closer look at the schedule and pick out some key points…

Kind or cruel?

Make no mistake, The Wire and Daryl Powell are under pressure to start 2023 well given the torrid year they endured in 2022.

To that end, whether or not the schedule has been kind or cruel to the head coach depends on how you look at it.

On the one hand, they are not due to bump into either of the top two sides from last season – St Helens and Wigan Warriors – until they face them in consecutive weeks in April.

On the other, however, the first three games sees them host beaten Grand Finalists Leeds Rhinos and 2022 semi-finalists Salford Red Devils as well as a trip to third-place finishers Huddersfield Giants, which is tough by anyone’s standards.

Wire's first away game sees them visit Huddersfield Giants (Image: SWPix.com)

A tough April that you could watch entirely from home

Any side in the competition would look upon The Wire’s April schedule and think “yikes…”

To start with, the ever-unpredictable Hull FC – now under the charge of former Wire boss Tony Smith – visit The Halliwell Jones Stadium before the Easter trip to Perpignan to face Catalans Dragons.

It gets no easier after that, with Wigan Warriors coming to town before the month wraps up with the small matter of a trip to St Helens, with the final weekend in April fenced off for what is set to be a mid-season international.

All four of those matches have been chosen for live coverage – the Hull FC game is on Channel Four while the remaining three are being shown on Sky Sports.

A home game against defending champions St Helens rounds off a tough April schedule (Image: Mike Boden)

Those pesky loop fixtures

With IMG working their way through the game’s kinks, one thing some fans are desperate to see the back of is loop fixtures.

For now, however, they are here to stay and Warrington will have extra games against both of last season’s Grand Finalists – St Helens and Leeds Rhinos – as well as Huddersfield Giants, Hull FC and Castleford Tigers.

Saints and Leeds will each make two trips to The Halliwell Jones Stadium, with The Wire visiting Huddersfield and Castleford twice during 2023 while Hull FC are faced home and away as well as at Magic Weekend.

Leeds Rhinos will visit The Halliwell Jones Stadium twice (Image: SWPix.com)

Challenge Cup to be squeezed in

Having been moved back in the schedule last year, the knockout competition is dragged forward again with the final back at Wembley on August 12.

Round dates have not been officially confirmed yet but the gaps in the schedule all but do it for them – currently, the weekends of April 28-30, May 20-21, June 17-18 and July 22-23 are all free.

One of those – potentially the April weekend – is likely to be a mid-season International window.

What Warrington will want to avoid is a repeat of last year, when their early exit from the Challenge Cup meant the fixture list became stop-start in the middle part of the year.

Wire were dumped out of the Challenge Cup by Wakefield Trinity in 2022 (Image: Mike Boden)

Friday night delights

For now at least, Friday is the most popular day for Warrington Wolves home games.

As things currently stand, eight of their 13 games on home soil are Friday night kick-offs with the only Thursday home games being the first two against Leeds (February 16) and Salford (March 2).

There are also three Saturday afternoon home games on the schedule with two of them – against Hull FC on April 1 and Huddersfield on June 10 – locked in for television coverage.