WARRINGTON Wolves will use the pre-season games against Hull Kingston Rovers and Toulouse to continue their development of young coaches like Lee Briers.

Wolves host Toulouse at 1pm on Sunday, before taking on Hull KR (3.30pm) at The Halliwell Jones Stadium as part of Chris Bridge’s Testimonial campaign.

Briers, 17 years a Wolves player before hanging up his boots in 2013, had the headphones on down on the touchline in Wolves’ delayed festive friendly win against Widnes Vikings, while Tony Smith and his right-hand man Richard Agar remained in the stands.

But the club’s head of coaching and rugby says he will continue to experiment with the role in which the likes of current under 19s head coach Briers and player welfare manager Karl Fitzpatrick take on match day.

“We’re looking at all sorts of things and we’ve got a whole new bench system,” said Smith.

“Karl’s running the messages at this stage and we may experiment with other people.

“Lee at some point may run some messages.

“That’s not set in stone, while we have certain roles we like to have a lot of flexibility in that in case someone is off sick or injured.”

Former Great Britain boss Smith believes his younger coaches can gain great experience from playing a variety of roles during first-team games.

“It’s fantastic for him,” said Smith about Briers’ involvement. “I’ve spoken to him and as the head coach of the under 19s it’s important for him to hear what the messages are like coming through from the top.

“It gives him some understanding. One of his comments was ‘I was surprised how few messages come through’ which is great for him to hear that and understand.”

Smith reflected on the lesson he learned himself as a young coach making his way in the game.

“Sometimes when we’re young and inexperienced coaches we send a whole heap of messages and expect them all to get followed,” he explained.

“We treat our players like remote control cars instead of letting them develop, letting them make some decisions.

“I think that’s one of the benefits of Lee doing the role he did against Widnes. He may play various roles this year.”