Inside the Deal: How Warrington Wolves secured immediate signing of Luke Yates

Luke Yates will be a Warrington Wolves player until at least the end of 2026 after the club negotiated a deal with Huddersfield Giants to bring the Australian over the Pennines earlier than planned.

Huddersfield, who Yates was captain of, have received an undisclosed fee from Warrington for releasing the 29-year-old early from his contract, which was due to expire at the end of the season.

It was announced back in May that Yates would join the Wolves on a two-year contract from 2025: but he could now make his debut in primrose and blue in Friday night’s trip to St Helens.

Love Rugby League went along to Warrington’s training complex earlier this week to get the inside story on how the club managed to secure the immediate services of the highly-rated forward.

On how the move to sign Yates immediately came about, Warrington coach Sam Burgess said: “I was speaking to him a little bit, I just felt there was a good opportunity at this time of the year to get him over and the two clubs managed to come to some agreement.

“It’s nice to have him onboard, he trained today (Tuesday), we’ll be looking at giving him some time and he’ll be making his debut this week hopefully.

“It wasn’t pre-planned. Obviously he was the captain there at Huddersfield and you don’t really want to influence anyone else’s season so we tried to respect he had a contract there, but once we felt that there was probably a tough chance they could make the finals – it’s not impossible – but just with Ian Watson going we thought it might be better to get him here.

“He’s a great player. He’s a very consistent player, you know what you are going to get. He’s a great bloke and a good professional so he’s only going to add to our culture. We’re really grateful we’ve been able to secure him and get him over a bit earlier, I think he’ll add something to the group for sure.”

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Burgess insisted that Yates wouldn’t be coming in to replace anyone, with no more outgoings expected from the Halliwell Jones Stadium until the end of the season at least.

He added: “We’re actually under the salary cap by quite a bit this year so we’ve been able to improve some of our own players, positions and then there’s still space to bring Yatesy in, so the cap space wasn’t an issue at all.

“You’ve got to look at the players that left our club this year – Sam Kasiano, Brad Dwyer, Matty Russell (loan), Gil Dudson (loan) – that’s a big chunk of the salary cap and we’ve not replaced any of them really. There’s probably four big-name players you’d say and we haven’t replaced one of them (until Yates has come in).”

Yates made his 89th, and final, appearance for Huddersfield in their 20-16 defeat at Leigh Leopards on Saturday afternoon. He admits the immediate move came about quickly, but that it was a deal that suited all parties.

“I’d been speaking to Sam and whatnot, I feel like Sam was probably just building a relationship with me more for next year,” Yates said.

“I wasn’t sure either way (whether it was going to be my last game), I was completely bought in and trying to do my absolute best for Huddersfield. We competed really well in that (Leigh) game but it was one of those things that happened quite quickly and then all of a sudden I was waking up and coming here.

“I thought it probably made sense with how things were going over there and the change in coach and stuff like that. When it sort of fizzled out, there seemed like there was a lot of change going on in the club and they were happy to do a bit of business, so I was like it made sense, it made sense to them, it made sense to me, so why not come to start my career over here a bit earlier and get to get amongst it, see the lads and see over here when it’s a bit nicer weather than coming in here in November or December!”

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Yates was born and raised in Australia, coming through the ranks at his boyhood club Newcastle Knights, making 25 appearances for the NRL club between 2017 and 2018 before making the move to Super League.

Yates is currently in his sixth season in England, having had spells with London Broncos, Salford Red Devils, Huddersfield and now Warrington: and he is loving life in the country.

“My missus is English so that obviously helps,” Yates continued. “I love where we live in Saddleworth now, it’s really nice, I’ve sort of lived around a bit but I feel like I’m pretty immersed into the English culture and stuff like that.

“It’s not like I get homesick at all, I don’t really know what the plan is when I do finish playing footy but she’s got a really good job so I’ll be happy enough to sort of stay and see where we go from the back end of that.”

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