IT cannot be denied that Warrington Wolves are in a much better place than they were 12 months ago.

Back then, uncertainty reigned supreme – were Sam Burgess’ undoubted qualities as a player going to translate into the coaching arena? And did he have the tools at his disposal to allow for that?

Fast forward to the present day and The Wire, with Burgess at the helm, have made undoubted progress – before last year, they had not reached the Challenge Cup Final or won a Super League play-off game since 2019. Both of those were ticked off as well as recording their highest-regular season points total (40) since winning the League Leaders' Shield in 2016.

They also finished the regular season with the best records in both attack (740 points scored) and defence (319 points conceded) while the three players they had in the Super League Dream Team - Matt Dufty, Matty Ashton and Danny Walker - was their highest number since 2016.

And yet, none of this was enough to satisfy their head coach for when it really mattered, his side fell short.

They faltered badly on the big stage at Wembley Stadium to lose the Challenge Cup Final to Wigan Warriors and emerged on the wrong side of the fine margins against Hull KR in the Super League semi-finals

Now, having restored them as challengers, Burgess' mission is to establish them as winners.

In their first season under Sam Burgess, Warrington Wolves were beaten Challenge Cup finalists and Super League semi-finalists (Image: John Walton/PA Wire) “I’ve got a good group of blokes who all get on well. Whilst ever that’s the case, you can make progress,” Burgess said.

“We have made progress last year but I wouldn’t say we’re happy with it.

“At the end we weren’t happy at all with the end and the way it finished. We thought it could have been better in certain areas.

“That’s what we’ve got to learn now – taking that next step.

“We’ve spent a lot of time on that and there’s been a lot of improvement already over the last few months.

“We have a lot to get after. No way are we near the finished product but we’re attacking every day which has been good.”

And when asked if he felt expectations were now different, he added: “That’s probably a valid statement.

“But for us it's really about an internal positioning.

“It’s not worrying about any of that – we’ve just got to get on with what's important to us, what we know we can get better at, what we're good at, keep working at that, and then what we need to improve on make sure we really working hard on that side of our game.

“It's not a ‘come in and say one thing and it changes.’ It's a lifestyle – an everlasting sort of lifestyle.

“So from my point of view, I just remain as consistent as I can be and hope that we're all moving in the right direction.”

In order to keep things moving, Burgess and the club have opted against making sweeping changes to their playing roster.

Of the team that finished last season, the likes of Josh Drinkwater, Matty Nicholson and John Bateman were the biggest departures but their successors had already been anointed in the shape of homegrown hopes Leon Hayes and Adam Holroyd.

Papua New Guinea international Dan Russell has arrived to bolster the second row, with Oli Leyland and Alfie Johnson adding competition in the halves and the outside-backs respectively.

With his group of players largely the same as the one he found in November 2023, he says pre-season has been more about evolution than education.

“Everything’s been in for 12 months so it’s not like we have to educate right back to the core values of where we were last year,” he said.

“We’ve picked up in a better place but we’ve had a much shorter pre-season because we finished a bit later and it was a pretty tough, long year so we didn’t miss many games.

“The guys needed a bit of a break.”

He is right in what he says, with Warrington involved in every possible week of competition last year save for the very last one having fallen agonisingly short of the Super League Grand Final.

But despite coming into the new year off an intentionally shorter run-up, his charges are ready to go again and after opening their season with a Challenge Cup third-round trip to Whitehaven, Burgess’ boys get their Super League campaign underway with a poetic reunion.

The Round One trip to Huddersfield Giants sees the Wire boss reunite with younger brother Tom, whose much-vaunted return to the English competition with the Yorkshiremen is set to come against the side coached by his elder sibling.

“Tom is calling it the Burgess Cup,” Sam joked.

“It’ll be good. We’re looking forward to it.

“Me and Tom are having a bit of banter about it. I don’t have to play anymore, I’m just sat in the box watching it.

“I can have a bit more humour around it now because I don’t have to be on the field making 20/30 tackles so I can have a bit of a laugh about it.

“He’s enjoying it and he’ll be good there because he’s a pretty composed bloke and he’s got a lot of experience.

“The game’s tough here, it’s a really tough comp, so he’ll have to get some hard work done as we’ll be coming in Round One.

“A couple of my other mates are there now and played with Luke Robinson at England a few times and they’ve brought over a few lads over from Souths in Taane Milne and Jacob Gagai so that’ll be good, I think they’ll be a bit better.”

And, just for this game, does he wish he could strap the boots back on?

“No, not against Tom, no way,” he laughed.

“I never played against Tom or George (Tom’s twin brother), I played against (older brother) Luke.

“George and Tom played against each other in the NRL, George for the Dragons and Tom at Souths. Luke has played against all of us.

“I’d find that pretty hard, actually.”

Round One opponents Huddersfield Giants will have Sam Burgess' younger brother Tom among their number (Image: SWPix.com)