Warrington Wolves recruitment update from director of rugby

That is according to director of rugby Gary Chambers, who says the current priority is keeping and developing what they currently have in-house.

From May 1, players in the final year of their current contracts will be able to speak to rival clubs about moves for 2025 and beyond, opening up the channels for business to be done.

In the first part of an exclusive Q&A with our Warrington Wolves reporter Matt Turner, Chambers outlines where things currently sit for the club in terms of recruitment...

MT: We’re coming up to your first “silly season” in terms of recruitment as director of rugby so what kind of place is all that in? Is the phone red-hot at the moment?

GC: It never stops!

I’m in at half 5, six o’clock in the morning and I can be here until nine at night looking at what the youth are doing and things like that.

From a recruitment point of view, we’ve been quite busy making sure we’ve got the right people within our club that we want to stay with us. We want to look after what we’ve got.

Outside of that, we’re looking around for people who will fit into that jigsaw and offer us what we need moving forward.

Sam’s been detailed in what he wants and I’m scouring the market looking for people to fit that bill.

We’re nearly done – we’re not done yet, but we’re nearly there.

MT: In that sense, do you feel you’ll be particularly active in the recruitment market for 2025?

GC: There’s not much more to do.

We’ll maybe look for one player – I don’t want to give too much away but we’re nearly done with what we want.

We feel we’ve got the right people in the right places to keep moving us forward.

MT: Salary cap wise, where do things sit currently? There’s an overseas quota spot available and a few players have moved on so if you wanted to recruit mid-season, is there scope to do that?

GC: Potentially, there is if things got desperate.

We’ve got a healthy squad at the moment but we know we’re going to get knocks – there’s lads playing with knocks now and good on them for doing that.

I’d be more than happy to promote one of our younger fellas in there when they’re ready, and they are – they’re ticking along nicely with the reserves.

There’s a couple in there we feel could come in and do a job for us without diluting the quality with got.

We’d be more than happy to use them and build on that “next man up” mantra we’ve got.

They would come in and do a good job – the kids at this place won’t let anybody down. Ultimately, we want to become a developing club as opposed to a recruiting club.

MT: We’ve seen players like Dan Okoro and Max Wood be brought in under your watch, so are they the kind of signings we can expect going forward – players of a lower age profile?

GC: Like I said earlier, we don’t want to block a pathway for the young players we’ve got.

There are some really talented young middles waiting to come in, but they’re probably 18 months to two years away from being ready.

Max became available and I’d watched him for a number of years – there were some things he needed to fix up about himself but I thought he could do a job for us.

He’s worked really hard to do that, so it was a no-brainer.

Dan is another one who fills that gap of having that little bit more maturity than what we currently have.

Max has come in and done well when he’s played and Dan will do the same.