WHEN Roger Draper played at Wilderspool, he probably never imagined that he would one day be back in Warrington with the top job at the Wolves – in a career path that has travelled via Wembley and Wimbledon.

The new chief executive at The Halliwell Jones Stadium started in the hot seat on Monday.

At 2pm on Tuesday he got every member of staff at the Wolves together from first team players to administration workers for a meeting to outline his plans.

The message is clear, one mission and everyone is in it together.

And as the 45-year-old told the Warrington Guardian on Tuesday during his first media interview since his appointment back in February, he has a 300-day target to move the club forward.

It was a plan partly fashioned during an undercover visit to Warrington in early February.

"I came to the Salford game in my hoodie and jeans because I wanted to see what it was like, get a feel for the place. Stand in the South Stand, walk through Warrington.

"I went to Wolfware to buy some things for my boys and the staff who served me kept looking as if 'haven't we seen you before'.

"But it is the people who make a place. And those weeks undercover were really interesting," he said.

And it must have been a good impression. Because he was back for the trip to Hull, the World Series clash with St George Illawarra and he kept up-to-date with Saturday's defeat in Catalan via Twitter while watching his son Jack play tennis in Sweden.

This Sunday's match with Hull KR will be his first since officially being in charge.

And he said meeting the men running the club persuaded him to go back into sport full time since leaving his post as head of the Lawn Tennis Association, which runs the sport in the UK, after Andy Murray won Wimbledon on 2013.

"I met Simon (Moran), Steven (Broomhead), Norman (Summers) and I already knew Tony and for me, the thing that appealed most was the people. How passionate they were about the club and about taking it to the next level."

And Draper, who is living on the former Greenalls site, says there are four areas for any sporting organisation to focus on - community, commercial, performance and running the business.

But all of these elements must be right for the Wolves to succeed.

"It is no good winning the Grand Final if you are not in a position to capitalize on it fully as a business. I always joked with Andy that I didn't want him to win Wimbledon too soon because we weren't ready for it," he said.

That seven-year stint at the LTA ended in 2013 and followed other roles with Sport England, where he helped the final delivery of the new Wembley stadium, the legacy of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and the initial bidding for the Olympics in London in 2012.

"My first week at Sport England and Wembley was on my desk. It was like skiing a black run without knowing how to ski," he said.

Indeed it is clear that sport is in his blood, as before accepting the roles at both Warrington and the LTA, he was on the verge of getting a job in the commercial world.

"I had an offer before Warrington and my boys said to me 'which job are you most excited about', and so I came to Warrington," he added.

And it was as a schoolboy that he first got to know Warrington and Wilderspool - or the Zoo as it was known then, meeting former kitman Ockher, Roy Aspinall.

Brought up in Billinge and Orrell, he played for for Wigan St Judes and then England students.

And it led to his first job as a rugby league development officer with the then London Crusaders before then moving to a role with Super League in the mid 1990s as the game became a summer sport.

It is a past Draper accepts most rugby league fans won't be aware of.

"I think people see tennis and hear the accent and think I am just another person from Surrey," he said.

"But everyone has been very positive and approachable since I have been here.

"We are not that far off.

"There are some things we do is world class and some other areas where we have got to catch up."

The next 300 days will see how far the club has come.