STEFAN Ratchford says the plan going into Wembley weekend is a clear one for Warrington Wolves.

The Wire and England full-back, who made a sensational return to the side in Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final success against Hull, is one of only four survivors in the squad from the last Wire side to win the competition in 2012 and believes being ‘battle-hardened’ can be advantageous to his side.

“After a tough game like the semi-final, going into the next matches against Catalans, St Helens and Wigan is going to be a tough test for us,” said the 31-year-old ahead of second-placed Wire’s trip to France this week.

“It will probably bode us well in terms of what we’ve got to face over the next few weeks.

“It will send us into the final battle-hardened, certainly.

“And with the way results have gone in the past two Super League games as well, we actually need big performances and results in these next three games.

“We can’t take it easy for three weeks and hope to peak at Wembley.

“We’ve got to win these next three games to hopefully put a bit of space between ourselves and Hull who are only two points behind us.

“So we have got a big three weeks in which we need results leading into the final where we don’t want to be going and coming home with a losers’ medal. We’re hoping to win it this time.

“We’ve been in this situation three times before fairly recently where we’ve come away from Wembley with the victory but we’ve had a couple of losses along the way as well so we know we’ve only done half a job.

“It’s nice to be back there but you don’t want to be going through all this effort of getting to Wembley and coming up with the wrong result.

“It’s always nice to win a semi final and be able to get to the big finals like Wembley and Old Trafford, but we don’t just want to go there to take part we’re going there to win it.

“So as nice as winning was on Saturday it’s all about the result in four weeks’ time.”