WITH Warrington Wolves’ 2024 season now at an end, it is time to reflect on how things broke down over the course of the year.
As such, we’ll be conducting a month-by-month review of The Wire’s first campaign under the charge of head coach Sam Burgess over the coming weeks.
READ MORE > Check our reviews of February and March and April
Next up, it’s May when the Burgess bandwagon continued to roll merrily onwards…
FOUR games, four wins and a cup final reached.
Warrington Wolves could not have asked for much more from the month of May as their campaign continued to pick up momentum.
It was a month that started with some squalid weather but ended with the sun very much shining, both literally and figuratively.
Having ended April with a defeat to Salford Red Devils, The Wire started the month needing to bounce back and do so with a new(ish) half-back partnership.
With the popular Leon Hayes cruelly stricken by a season-ending injury, it was now down to the much-maligned Josh Drinkwater – the man who had been usurped by the youngster – to take up the slack alongside George Williams in the halves.
The two combined for Williams to score in a routine victory over Hull FC in Round 10 in frankly awful weather at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, with Josh Thewlis running in a hat-trick in a game probably best remembered for some verbal jousting from Burgess, who was denied the use of one of his interchanges due to a discrepancy in the submission of his 21-man squad.
Now they were back to winning ways, the bigger tests were to come – and they were passed with flying colours.
The first of which saw Hull KR visit for a Thursday night blockbuster, and they found a Warrington side in laser-focused, razor-sharp mood.
The left edge ran hot as they tormented the Robins right, with all three of the tries they scored coming down that side, two of them courtesy of Toby King who enjoyed perhaps his best game since returning from his 18-month exile.
Even when Rovers fought back either side of half-time, Wire’s new-found defensive resilience came to the fore (more on that to come) to seal the kind of statement Super League victory many still felt their season had lacked to date.
Any notion that Huddersfield Giants would pose then a discernible threat was extinguished inside the first 10 minutes and as thousands of jubilant supporters watched on, Warrington piled on the points and Wembley tickets were booked.
The haul stopped at 46 as The Wire sealed a spot in the Challenge Cup Final for the first time in five years – the clearest indicator yet that Warrington Wolves were back.
The first of those was a second trip of the season to Perpignan to visit a Catalans team that had been responsible for two of their three defeats to date.
The squad decamped to France for the entire week before the game to prepare and with any notion of self-preservation shunned, they threw themselves into a bruising encounter in the late-spring heat.
Les Dracs put the blowtorch under their visitors, but they simply refused to yield in what was a truly herculean defensive effort.
By the time their line was breached, they already had the game won thanks to tries from George Williams and Matty Ashton to the delight of their travelling fans, many of whom hailed the 16-8 success as their finest Super League victory for many a year.
This was a pivotal month in Warrington’s season, and they emerged from it in incredible shape.
Warrington Wolves results, May 2024
Friday 3…Hull FC (H) - won 24-6
Thursday 9…Hull KR (H) - won 20-8
Sunday 19…Huddersfield Giants (Challenge Cup semi final) - won 46-10
Saturday 25…Catalans Dragons (A) - won 16-8
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