Every word Warrington Wolves coach Sam Burgess said on interchange debacle following Hull FC clash

Warrington Wolves boss Sam Burgess was furious about the interchange debacle which unfolded prior to their win over Hull FC on Friday night, and made his feelings known.

Due to what is believed to have been an administrative error, the Wolves were docked an interchange meaning they were only permitted to make seven rotations over the course of the 80 minutes rather than the usual eight.

It’s not the first time this season that we’ve seen something like this happen, with Castleford Tigers also docked an interchange in similar circumstances prior to their defeat at Salford Red Devils in Round 2 back in February.

Then, it was an error with the teamsheet on the day.

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Every word Warrington Wolves coach Sam Burgess said on interchange debacle following Hull FC clash

Friday night’s issues surrounded a discrepancy in the 21-man squad named by Burgess, and the one which the RFL received via their system.

Adam Holroyd had been named by the hosts, but that hadn’t correlated with what the RFL’s software was showing. Accordingly, they were still able to use the four interchanges, just docked a rotation.

But in this instance, it’s emerged that didn’t need to be the case – with Hull, and their director of rugby Richie Myler in particular, not willing to allow the administrative error to go unpunished.

Having already given a quite fiery interview on Sky Sports, Burgess‘ anger continued post-match in his press conference, as he detailed: “I’ve got to get some more information before I say too much. I was pretty animated after the game on Sky.

Here’s the video of what was said 🎥He’s usually pretty reserved and very careful about what he says in the press, so seeing him this fired up about something is rare pic.twitter.com/tGvTef1wVm

— Matthew Turner (@MattTurner_WG) May 4, 2024

“I was told I was losing a substitution. I couldn’t understand why. I’d done my process through the week exactly the same as I do every week.

“I sent the 21-man squad in, it gets sent in early in the week, you (the media) all got it.

“Everyone else got it except the RFL and Hull complained so I lost a sub pre-game. They said Adam Holroyd wasn’t in the 21… you (the media) have got him in my 21 and you’ve double-checked that…

“It’s just not good enough. It’s actually not good enough.

“There was an option to give us our sub back because there was a mess-up, and ethical choices were made not to do that.

“I don’t know what we’re trying to do – we’ve got all these protocols around player safety, player welfare and health and we’re all concerned about it until someone gets a chance to get one up on the other team.