DARYL Powell and his Warrington Wolves players have been hard at work preparing for the visit of in-form Hull KR on Friday.
Still, the Wire head coach took time out to talk to us about the issues of the week at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, including...
- Why securing Danny Walker's future was a big priority
- The decision between Matt Dufty and Josh Thewlis at full-back
- Getting back into the groove after "a bumpy ride" in recent weeks
- Josh McGuire's initial impact on the side since returning from suspension
- Facing an in-form Hull KR side
Here is everything he discussed with our Warrington Wolves reporter Matt Turner...
MT: We’ll talk first about Danny Walker’s new deal – was getting him tied down a big priority for you?
DP: It was – he’s always been a really good player, Danny. He was a really good young player coming through at Widnes.
He’s been phenomenal since the very start of pre-season. You could see his leadership sparking all over the place and he’s grown from a maturity perspective and a confidence perspective.
He says things how it is so as a person and as a leader, he’s grown but his game has been driven forward by his willingness to work so hard in everything he does.
His all-round game has grown significantly – his kicking game, he’s running the ball when he needs to run it, his pass accuracy is great and he’s a tough defender.
As an all-round hooker, he’s grown immensely and that was capped off by getting the cap for England, which is what everybody wants to do.
He’s really earned that through pre-season and the start to this season.
> Why Danny Walker was so keen to extend his Warrington Wolves deal
MT: Onto Friday then and there’s a few decisions about the side that seem a bit up in the air, one of them being whether or not Matt Dufty comes back into the starting team.
At the very least, have you found dropping out of the top 13 has refocused him?
DP: Me and Duff have had some decent chats about it
The other thing is we had a young buck in Josh Thewlis who came in and played really well – he got our players’ player of the match vote which generally is the one people revere.
He played really well and I think Duff came on and did well in the game. Matt’s a quality player and he’s our full-back.
He’ll play this week – whether he starts or comes off the bench is a call I’ll have to make but I’d be comfortable with whoever starts and whoever finishes.
I’m pretty comfortable with the call I made last week. I think it was the right one.
We’ve all got to be accountable for our own performances but now we’re moving forward. Duff knows what he has to do and Josh has been class for us wherever he’s played.
MT: You’ll have reviewed last week and you were looking to pinpoint why the things you weren’t too happy about post-match were happening.
Have you been able to put your finger on that as a group?
DP: I think so – one thing that did happen is that the opposition didn’t go away.
I think at 12-0, there was a feeling that we had the game won – that’s what it looked like and that’s probably the answer to most of it.
Once you take your foot off the pedal, it’s hard to put it back on. There’s some clear lessons there for us in terms of staying consistent.
We’ve found a couple of times this season that we’re not quite as consistent over 80 minutes as we’d want to be but if we go through all the statistics, we feature pretty highly in most of them.
We’re top of the comp – we may not be exactly where we want to be performance-wise but as you go through a season, there’s always going to be a bit of a bumpy ride somewhere.
You have to learn to ride them, get over it and get back on top and we’re probably going through that at the moment.
In terms of points scored, the number of play-the-balls inside the 20 its taking the opposition to score against us, we’re top of both of those. We’re second behind Salford in terms of the number of play-the-balls inside the 20 its taking us to score.
We’re in a good place and we’ve got a lot of things going for us, but we’ve lost a couple of games and its rattled us a little bit.
We’ve got to find our form again and this game on Friday is a great opportunity for us to do that. They’re flying and we’ve got to find our groove again.
We’ve had a couple of good training sessions and it should be a great game.
MT: Can I ask you about how you feel Josh McGuire is going since he came into the side?
To many, he seems to be falling into the category of a player who does the unseen things that are appreciated by teammates and coaches while not being particularly eye-catching for supporters. Is that how you see it?
DP: I think if you sit down with Josh and speak to him about it, he’ll probably tell you he’s not going as well as he’d want to at the moment.
He’s working hard and trying to get his groove but I don’t think he’s quite found it yet.
He’s got four games under his belt now – three of them against some of the big boys – but Friday’s a good opportunity for him to start playing with the intent he’s shown over his career.
He’ll tell you he hasn’t been at his best yet but he’s working hard to get there.
MT: Looking at Hull KR, I think they’ve only lost once since you won at their place in March so at present, do you see facing them as just as big a test as a Catalans, a Wigan or a St Helens?
DP: They’re certainly playing with that kind of confidence at the moment.
They’re all working hard for each other and it doesn’t seem to matter who drops out of the team because someone else just slots in and does the same job.
They’re not a massive physical team but they’re gritty, determined and they come after you.
We were talking about the stats earlier and they’re up there in a lot of categories – they complete high, they hold territory well and they concede the least metres in the competition per set so you can see their line speed is good.
Confidence in teams ebbs and flows throughout a season and theirs will be as high as it goes at the moment. They’re playing with no fear so it’s going to be a big test for us.
MT: There’s a little bit of uncertainty as to how their spine might look with Coote and Abdull missing so does that make them a little bit tougher to prepare for?
DP: We got a good look at Mikey Lewis at full-back from last week’s game as Coote went off quite early and they’ve got Ethan Ryan who can play there as well.
It does make it a bit trickier but ultimately, you know what they’re going to do. They’ve been playing a similar way all year.
It’s about us and making sure our defence is really solid and that we do what we need to do with the ball.
It’ll be a different game where we have to react to situations well. We want to start well, keep our foot on the gas and be able to handle things when we do get put under pressure.
We’ve been a little bit up and down with that but it’s another opportunity for us against a good team.
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