THE less said about the 2023 Super League season from a Warrington Wolves perspective the better.
Though anticipation and hope was aplenty going into the season under new head coach Daryl Powell – who had excelled as Castleford Tigers boss for almost nine years – that suddenly fell flat quickly.
Despite winning their opening three games of the season, Warrington fell away and found themselves languishing near the bottom of the Super League table and in real danger of being sucked into a relegation dogfight.
The Cheshire club ended up steadying itself, but the Wolves finished second bottom with only relegated Toulouse Olympique below them.
Since then, Powell has been backed entirely by the Warrington board to bring in the players that he wants which has resulted in a plethora of new signings.
Josh McGuire has arrived from the St George Illawarra Dragons, Paul Vaughan and Matt Dufty from the Canterbury Bulldogs, Matty Nicholson from the Wigan Warriors, Sam Kasiano, Gil Dudson and Josh Drinkwater from the Catalans Dragons, Thomas Mikaele from Wests Tigers and Matty Russell from Toulouse Olympique.
Those departing also fill a lengthy list with Oliver Holmes, Jack Hughes, Rob Mulhern, Matt Davis, Jacob Gannon (all Leigh Leopards), Gareth Widdop (Castleford Tigers), Jason Clark (Limoux Grizzlies), Toby King (Wigan Warriors, loan), Ellis Longstaff (Salford Red Devils, loan) all exiting the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
Meanwhile, Connor Wrench will miss the opening few games following an ACL injury.
With that in mind, how could Warrington line up in 2023? (Numbers below do NOT represent squad numbers whilst new signings are highlighted in bold).
1 Matt Dufty
2 Josh Thewlis
3 Peter Mata’utia
4 Stefan Ratchford
5 Matty Ashton
6 George Williams
7 Josh Drinkwater
8 James Harrison
9 Daryl Clark
10 Paul Vaughan
11 Ben Currie
12 Matty Nicholson
13 Josh McGuire
Substitutes
14 Danny Walker
15 Thomas Mikaele
16 Sam Kasiano
17 Gil Dudson
