Woolf Q&A: A year in blocks, belief in squad and Wire preview

MC: Always tough picking up after a big knockout defeat, are you proud with how they did that against Hull FC?

KW: I was really pleased with the effort. Challenge Cup semi finals are big games and there was a lot of emotional investment that went into it and you could see that, in particular, in the second half with how much we put back into the second half.

When you don’t get the job done that takes a lot out of you as well – and emotionally takes a lot out of you.

We took a couple of days to get over it and there’s no doubt that on Tuesday’s training session we still had a bit of emotional baggage there.

I thought the players did and outstanding job in the way that by Thursday and captain’s run they were coming through with a different bounce about us, and a different energy and you could tell that they were ready to make amends.

The way we approached the game showed the mindset and attitude we had - and we did that for the full 80 minutes.

MC: You have some injuries, including Lewis Dodd for the year, but you and Paul Wellens seem to have real belief in this squad to deliver?

KW: I have 100 per cent belief in the squad that we have put together and we put that together knowing that the journey you go through each year is never a smooth one and every year throws up plenty of challenges.

And in terms of injuries we have had more challenges this year than we did the last two – that’s not to say we didn’t have challenges the last two seasons.

In 2020 we lost Luke Thompson and Mark Percival for the season - who were their two best players in the competition in their position.

Last year we lost James Bentley and Theo Fages and they were right up there in their positions.

This year there’s been a few more of them but we put that squad together with 100 per cent confidence.

And we want to show confidence in those blokes, they have come in and earned that trust with how they have performed in particular with the effort they have put in and so we are extremely confident going forward as well.

MC: When you have to re-focus for the big prize at the end of the year – at this half way point do you have to mentally break the year down into blocks with how you tackle that?

KW: We do try to have smaller blocks that we can focus on and that helps with the mindset of worrying about what is coming up and worrying about the shorter term.

We know if we do that we put things in place for the longer term.

Within this block, now, knowing that we are not going to be in the Challenge Cup Final we can throw ourselves into this block and then have a mental freshen up and then we will tackle the next block and break that up.

It is an approach that has tended to work well for us and what we will continue to do.

MC: Not what you wanted but you get a week off after Warrington – what is the plan?

KW: We will give the players a little break and some time away from footy.

It is along season with a lot of games, with very few breaks so it is important that when we get the opportunity we take advamtage of that and give them a good mental freshen up.

That is the most important thing – although they have bumps and bruises and that break is a good time – but it is the mental freshen up that is key.

MC: There is always a bit of a buzz around the Warrington game with it being a local derby – is it one the players have a bit of a bounce for?

KW: The players look forward to it – it is a local derby even if not as big as the Wigan game obviously, but our players still enjoy it and our fans do to.

One that stands out was last year’s game a little bit later in the season when we were in a similar boat with injuries and paired Lewis Dodd and Jack Welsby in the halves for the first time, there was a great atmosphere and it was great, intense, quality game of footy.

We came up with a great effort to get the win.

It is certainly one everyone gets excited about.