WARRINGTON Wolves are about to put 2023 memberships on sale in a hellishly difficult climate.

As if doing so while the country was in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis was not tough enough, the club’s worst ever Super League season is still fresh in the memory of many.

Supporters will no doubt be wanting to know if the club have truly learned lessons from an abject 2022 and what has been done to ensure 2023 is much more positive.

Chief executive Karl Fitzpatrick acknowledged they have work to do to make fans “fall back in love” with the club.

He outlined steps they will be taking to help with that off the field but ultimately, he says it is what happens on it that truly matters.

“In the season we’ve just had, you analyse everything to the nth degree,” he told the Guardian.

“The board and I have done a deep dive into what’s happened and we’ve got an understanding on why the season panned out the way it did.

“Daryl’s now had the chance to put his stamp on the team – when we interviewed him for the job, he told us it would need a rebuild and this is now his team.

“In his defence, we probably didn’t expect that rebuild to be as big and as quick as it has been with only two players retained from 15 off-contract.

“The team should be a lot more settled, Daryl has a good understanding with the players still with the club and that will start to reflect.”

Having finished second-bottom in 2022, there is a lot of traffic between The Wire and where they feel they should be – i.e challenging for honours at the top end of the table.

That remains the stated aim, but Fitzpatrick stressed the need for patience.

“We want to be competitive, we want to improve and we want to be at the right end of the table,” he said.

“The very first thing we want to get right is our connection with the community – that is really important.

“It’s getting the fans and the community to fall back in love with the club and the players again.

“As part of the players’ schedule throughout pre-season, they will be going into the community once a week. Having that connection is really important for us.

“On the field, we want to be back in that top four and challenging again, but we have to be patient and following a process.

“We do lots of tremendous work in the community via our Foundation. We took our academy to the Warrington Youth Zone and they’re mentoring these young kids which is fantastic.

“It’s a fantastic initiative and we need to do that more regularly with our first-team players.

“Being more visible in the community will help win supporters over but ultimately, it is what happens from whistle to whistle that really matters. We’re not naïve enough to think otherwise.

“If we show effort and endeavour to the supporters, results should take care of themselves.

“They want to see the players are wearing the colours and representing our fantastic town with pride and endeavour.”