PRE-SEASON friendlies can be viewed in many different ways.

Whether you feel they are merely a cobweb-ridding exercise or a chance to send out a statement, however, one can be forgiven for questioning whether Warrington Wolves did either.

Let’s assess the former first – was a 40-minute run-out, and an underwhelming one at that, enough to get Wire’s first-team stars sufficiently tuned up for the season opener?

We won’t know the answer for sure until we see what they dish up in Perpignan in a fortnight and there was nothing really to be gained from running them into the ground in this game, particularly with the number of injuries already floating around the squad.

That may well have played a part in Sam Burgess’ decision to haul his star men off at the break but given they had finished the first half in the ascendency after a very sloppy start, it would have been interesting to see how things would have progressed had they been given another 15-20 minutes after the interval.

However, that was not the case as a largely youthful side took the field for the second half and acquitted themselves well, with academy winger Frank Sergent enjoying a moment to remember as he touched down for a try.

That brings us neatly onto the “sending out a statement” point.

When the two first-choice line-ups were on the field, there was only one that really portrayed they were ready for what is to come – and that was Leigh Leopards.

Their forwards were dominant and their new half-back partnership of Matt Moylan and Lachlan Lam looked cohesive and fluent, so they can be thoroughly satisfied with their night’s work.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of their hosts and while it is absolutely not time to reach for the panic button, Burgess will have wanted to see a lot more than he did.

With the exception of the suspended Paul Vaughan and the injured Matty Ashton and Matty Nicholson, you wouldn’t bet against the team that started against Leigh Leopards doing the same against Catalans Dragons and if they do, there is plenty to do between now and then.

You can always find mitigation for a clunky-looking attack at this stage of the year but in that respect, you could at least see what they were trying to do.

There were a lot of new partnerships out there and with familiarity comes better timing, but there were signs of some shape and promise when it did stick.

Where they fell down, however, was in the basic fundamentals of rugby league that Burgess and his coaches have been so keen to focus on through pre-season.

As Burgess himself put it, The Wire players didn’t “get into the grind” with their opponents and that resulted in lost rucks, loose tackle control and with the ball, errors were drawn from them.

That and several instances of ill-discipline cost them any chance to turn the screw on their visitors until beyond the midway point of the first half when, having tidied themselves up a little, they came into the game and got themselves over the whitewash through James Harrison.

With what will no doubt be a gruelling physical contest in Perpignan awaiting them first up, that is the key lesson they must take from this briefest of shakedown sessions – do the basics right and good things will happen.

Burgess and the coaching staff insist that is being drummed in but on this first publicly available evidence, there is more work to be done.