AFTER watching his side finish the regular season in style, Sam Burgess knows what happens from now on will be “a whole different beast” for Warrington Wolves.

Their 54-0 thrashing of London Broncos proved immaterial in terms of their final finishing position, with Hull KR pipping them to second spot after beating Leeds Rhinos at Craven Park.

It means The Wire’s road to Old Trafford will start next Saturday with an eliminator tie against St Helens at The Halliwell Jones Stadium – an occasion Burgess says he cannot wait for.

Here is everything the Wire boss said following their Round 27 victory…

Q: Not quite enough for second spot but you must have been really happy with what you saw out there tonight?

SB: Really happy with them again.

I wasn’t surprised – we’ve been building things in the past couple of weeks.

London have been playing with so much spirit over the past couple of weeks, so the result didn’t just happen. We played well and stuck to the parts of our game we feel are important for long periods.

Q: How in-tune and connected do you feel like the lads are heading into the do-or-die games to come?

SB: They’re certainly in a better place.

We’ve not conceded any points in the past two or three games, which doesn’t just happen. They’re working hard for each other.

We know it’s going to be a whole different beast now, so we have to dial down and tighten things up.

We’re excited now – we’ve worked hard to get to the finals and we’re right where we want to be.

The week off isn’t a big issue for us – we felt we lost that at Leigh so we’ve moved on from that.

(Image: Neil Ashurst/P&B Pictures) Q: Will there be any sort of feeling of “what might have been” about missing second, or will you reflect on this regular season with real satisfaction?

SB: We’re happy that we’re third and we’re happy with our efforts throughout the year.

It’s given us a home semi-final against most likely Saints. It’s going to be an incredible atmosphere and hopefully, we get this place as full as possible and put on a great show.

Q: Your left edge looks pretty in-sync at the moment, with Matty Ashton scoring for fun and Matty Nicholson having slotted in seamlessly having been on the right all year?

SB: I was just saying tonight that I actually think Matty is a left-sided player.

He naturally suits the left – it’s just a shame he didn’t tell me that earlier in the year!

We obviously had Lachie (Fitzgibbon) on the left but it suits his game best on that side.

(Image: SWPix.com) Q: You’ve actually now finished the regular season with the best attacking and defensive records in the competition, which must make you pretty proud?

SB: I mean, we’d rather be first in those things than anywhere else, but the best stat is being first in the league.

More with the defensive one than anything – it’s not something that just happens.

That was a very conscious change in mindset and shift in energy towards defence. I don’t think that’s been said too much about this club in the past but hopefully, we’re now starting to go that way.

Q: You’ve played plenty of play-off footy through the years – how will that experience help you in the next few weeks, if at all?

SB: I’m not sure because it’s my first time as a coach in a finals series at this level.

I’d hope that we’ve built some great tools that can help us get through the next block strongly.

We started 10 months ago now building our game around certain things and we’ve fine-tuned it as the game’s gone on. Not much is going to change now in the next few weeks.

It will just come down to moments and being ready to take them when they come. The guys are in good order at the moment and are committed to each other.

It may be the bounce of a ball and a couple of other things that could be the deciding factor.

Q: What have you made of Saints recently?

SB: They’ve probably had the worst run with injuries with a lot of their players.

It’s no secret they’ve had a tough year with that, especially through the middle of the year when they were hit pretty hard.

They’ve done a good job to hang in there and they’ve now got a few players back on board.

They looked like they had pretty much a full-strength side out there tonight so we’ll expect them at their best. They’ve been there and done it so many times in the past five years.

It’s just what we need at this time of year – there’s no easy route so we’re looking forward to it.