THEY may need favours from elsewhere to gatecrash the top two – but Sam Burgess insists that will not stop Warrington Wolves from trying.
However, he also stressed their focus must first and foremost be on doing their own bit as they bid to officially secure a top-four spot this evening.
A win at Hull FC today will guarantee a home eliminator tie at worst for The Wire while also extending their recent winning run to six – an admirable feat considering their hectic recent schedule.
Such a run has raised hopes that they might be able to sneak past one of Wigan Warriors or Leeds Rhinos and straight into the semi-finals, and Burgess admits he will have half an eye on what’s happening elsewhere.
“We’re ambitious,” he said when asked whether or not his side still have designs on a top-two spot.
“Without getting too carried away, we just have to keep playing well and winning our games. We’re building a game to hold us through finals matches.
“We need results and Wigan and Leeds do play each other next week but if you get too caught up in that, you lose track of what’s important.
“What’s important for us is getting our performance right and giving ourselves the best opportunity.
“At this time of year, we’re all watching.
“I watch rugby 24-7 anyway – my wife’s fed up of it – but everyone’s watching, whether you’re studying teams and players but there’s a bit happening at the moment.
“We’ve got a keen interest in results – anyone who says they’re not watching is lying.”
If nothing else, Warrington have the chance to go into the post-season with some serious momentum behind them.
Even though this will be their sixth game of a jam-packed calendar month as well as their second trip along the length of the M62 in the space of a fortnight, the team’s attitude has wowed their head coach.
Burgess was also keen to tip up the club’s head of performance Ade Gardner for devising a long-term plan which – to this point – has allowed them to come through this period with a relatively clean bill of health.
“We’ve had to back off a little bit, still,” he said when asked about how active they had been in their preparations since beating Huddersfield Giants on Sunday.
“We’re on a six-day turnaround now and normally when you have that in the season, you back off anyway but we’ve got one on the back of three five-day turnarounds.
“We started prepping for this three months ago – we were doing more load and more weights so we could accommodate this block.
“That’s why my position on the scheduling is the way it is – because of the amount of extra work we’ve had to do and the effect it’s going to have after the games.
“That’s why I was disappointed with it – we’re through to the back end of it now but I’d say we’re going to have to manage things well until the end of the season now.
“We’ve done well to come through as unscathed as possible. It’s a big hats-off to Ade Gardner, who came up with the training programme a few months ago.
“We’ve managed well in it but we’ve got to make sure we’re still diligent over the next two or three weeks.
“Winning five in a row is nice, so everyone’s happy at the moment. We’re just in a bit of a flow.
“George (Williams) and a few other boys have jumped back into the team which has helped us, and there’s been little things to go at each week.
“This week, there’s a couple of things for us to chase in the game that we can improve on.”
And when asked what about the recent good form has pleased him most, he replied: “My team’s willingness to compete regardless of how they’re feeling.
“They just get on with the job and no-one’s really complained – we’ve handled it as best we can.
“We had to travel to Hull on a Tuesday night and it was a four-hour trip back on the bus, but nobody complained.
“Everyone just turned up to work the next day, got on with the job and focused on the next contest.”
And having conquered the east side of the city earlier this month, they now focus on west Hull and a Black and Whites side that have had another desperately disappointing campaign.
They sit 11th in the table and while they have shown signs of life in recent weeks by winning two of their last three matches, they have not won on home soil since Round 14.
There is, of course, an interesting sub-plot to the game in that Hull’s incoming head coach Steve McNamara will be sat on Warrington’s coaching bench, so do Wire have to account for their hosts going the extra mile to try and impress him?
“We can’t really control what Hull are doing,” Burgess said.
“I’m sure there’s all those extra things that might be going into it, but it’s irrelevant to us.
“It is what it is – we’re not too fussed about it.
“With their position in the league, they’re obviously not sitting where they’d like to.
“In terms of the stats, the points scored and conceded and points difference is generally a good marker of where a team is at and they’ve lost a lot of tight games so we’re pretty wary of them.
“It’s another chance for us to get our job done. It’s going to be a tough game – it always is over in Hull – so we’re preparing for a tough contest.”
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