WITH his squad back from their Christmas break and their campaign of pre-season friendlies about to start, Sam Burgess has outlined how he will use his Warrington Wolves squad during that time.

And with a long campaign ahead, he insists he will not “overuse” his players, with frontline first-teamers set for just a 40-minute run-out before the season starts.

Having had just under a fortnight off for the festive period, the Wire squad return to pre-season training today to start what will be a busy month before the competitive action begins, featuring three pre-season friendlies and a trip overseas.

It had already been confirmed that a youthful team will be travelling to face Championship side Halifax Panthers on January 12 in a Testimonial match for Fax’s James Saltonstall, who came through the Warrington academy before joining his hometown club.

Burgess has confirmed his assistant coach Richard Marshall will take charge of that game, with the head coach back in the hot seat for home friendlies against Widnes Vikings (January 17) and Leigh Leopards (February 1), with the latter being Toby King’s Testimonial match.

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“We play a lot of games as it is, so I’m not going to overuse my players,” the Wire head coach told the Guardian.

“There will be a lot of young players out at Halifax – I don’t think you’ll see anyone in our top 33 play.

“It will be all of the junior boys but it will be a good opportunity for them. Rich Marshall and Ryan O’Brien are going to take that game.

“We’ll have a look at some of our younger guys against Widnes – that will be a fairly young side as well although Stef (Ratchford) might get a run in there and I may throw a couple of senior boys in.

“For Kingy’s Testimonial, which everybody is pretty excited for as he’s a popular character, we’ll put a pretty strong team out for at least 40 minutes and see how they run.”

Following the Widnes friendly, the squad will fly out to Tenerife for a warm weather training camp.

Tenerife was often a pre-season destination for Warrington under Tony Smith but they have not been since his final season in charge in 2017, although they travelled to Portugal for camps twice under Steve Price and once during Daryl Powell’s reign.

Burgess opted against an overseas camp last year but says the change of tack this year is about “catching up” given the shorter pre-season they have had.

“We got a bit further into last year’s competition and we gave the lads a longer break, which they needed because of the effort they put in last year,” he said.

“Getting to Tenerife is about catching up a bit of time given the shorter pre-season.

“We’ll be able to have some concentrated time that week when we can really work on our game model and plan.

“Keeping them for seven days in that environment will be great for us to grow.”