SAM BURGESS is looking forward to working with the future crop of Warrington players following their tour of Australia.
The Wolves’ Academy team recently completed a three-week tour down under, in which they stayed at the training base of NRL champions Penrith Panthers and trained at several other clubs.
They played three games, beating Wests Tigers in between defeats to South Sydney Rabbitohs and a New South Wales Under-17s team.
That came at the end of a season in which the team reached the Academy Grand Final (albeit controversially, losing to Wigan in the semi-finals only for the Warriors to be removed for using too many interchanges), losing to St Helens.
Early in the trip, the youngsters were visited by new Wire head coach Burgess before he left Australia to begin work at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
And Burgess is keen to be involved with the up-and-coming players as part of his job, with a view to bringing the best into his Super League team.
“I think we’ve got some great juniors, some really exciting young kids,” said the former England captain, who last week agreed a dual-registration partnership with Cheshire neighbours Widnes.
“Although my job is to win with the first team, it’ll be to progress a few of those players into the first team, and give them some guidance on that.
“I think I’ll have some good knowledge and tips for them to try and push into the first grade.
“It would be lovely to blood a few debutants, especially local boys.
“There are some great players and I’m really excited to see what they can do over the next two years.”
*Read a full interview with Sam Burgess in the December issue of Rugby League World, out on Friday. Subscriptions are available at totalrl.com
