WARRINGTON Wolves have proved a few people wrong this year on the back of a heap of changes that followed a disappointing 2017 under Tony Smith.

“Despite coming up short in the Grand Final and Challenge Cup, to reach both finals in 2016 and clinch the League Leaders’ Shield was a tremendous achievement,” said Wire full-back Stefan Ratchford.

“So in 2017 we were really looking forward to building on that but things didn’t go our way and we didn’t perform to the standards we expect of ourselves and what the club expect of us.

“We found ourselves in a bit of a sticky spot.

“Then we had a new coach, backroom team and new players.

“As a club we’ve believed we could do something this year and be successful.

“But I think there was a lot of doubt on the outside.

“We’d had a bad year the year before, we’d made a lot of changes and we didn’t get off to the best of starts in the first two games which meant there was a lot of negativity from the outside.

“But as a group we were saying that’s two games out of potentially a 37-game season, so don’t worry about them. We knew where we needed to be and what we needed to do to get ourselves in a good position.

“I think since round two we’ve been in quite a good spot. I don’t think we’ve had any really poor performances.

“We’ve always kept faith with each other and we’ve known what each player was capable of. People are starting to gel and know how each other likes to play.

“I think after the first two games if people had said Warrington will be pushing for second spot and in a Challenge Cup Final people would have probably laughed but we were always confident as a group we could get where we want to be.

“We know we’ve got room for improvement as well. Yes, obviously we want to win things this year but over the next couple of years we can hopefully keep building as well and hopefully create something special.”