Warrington Wolves talking points before Salford Red Devils clash

For Sam Burgess' side, it is another tricky away fixture but having won their past four games on the road, they are certainly in handy form on their travels.

Meanwhile, Salford will be looking to land another significant blow having already beaten St Helens this season while they also gave defending champions Wigan Warriors an almighty scare.

Our Wire reporter Matt Turner has picked out five key talking points ahead of the game at the Salford Community Stadium to mull over here...

A significant marker in Wire’s season

After Saturday, we will be a third of the way through the regular season – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

Eight rounds are done and dusted and although they are not quite in as good a position as they were last year – one cannot improve upon perfection, after all – Wire are in a good spot with six wins from their eight games.

However, we all know what happened from this point onwards in 2023 – they won only six of the 19 games that followed to go from title contenders to barely scraping into the play-offs, a run that cost Daryl Powell his job.

This is the point at which we start to find out whether a good start will turn into a good season.

Are Wire better equipped to make that next step this time around? The general feeling is that they are, but we will see for sure soon enough.

A high-value fixture

Already, you can sense gaps starting to form within the Super League table.

The bottom four are looking increasingly cut adrift and although a Leigh Leopards resurgence will surely come, have they left it too late to force their way into the top-six mix?

Above them, things are pretty tightly packed. Indeed, Wire actually dropped two places in the table despite winning last week thanks to both St Helens and Wigan Warriors recording blow-out victories.

That can happen at this stage of the season with things very much in flux, which makes beating another of the sides in that bunch all the more valuable.

If Wire can manage it, it gives them a little more of a cushion to work with.

Regular starting middle to be restored?

One of the chief criticisms of Warrington’s performance in beating Leigh last week was their start to the game.

In general, they have been quick out of the blocks but at the weekend, they were rolled physically by their visitors, forcing them firmly onto the back foot.

As such, it would surprise nobody to see Paul Vaughan restored to the starting side this week to try and improve upon that.

Sam Burgess’ decision to stick with the starting middle that served them so well at St Helens in Vaughan’s absence was fair and admirable, but the Australian’s starting partnership with the increasingly influential James Harrison has been a key part of their successful start to the year.

One would envisage a straight swap with Joe Philbin, with another bench spot set to be opened up by Stefan Ratchford’s likely promotion to the starting side to replace the injured Connor Wrench.

Kick defence to come under huge scrutiny

There is not a team in the land who cannot claim they are bulletproof when it comes to dealing with kicks close to their own line.

For Warrington, however, it has been a particular vulnerability of late.

In total, six of the last nine tries they have conceded have come from kicks and for the season as a whole, they have let in 10 tries via that route.

When you’re about to face a side containing the competition’s most proficient and accurate kicker in Marc Sneyd, that is a real concern.

Paul Rowley and his coaches will no doubt have picked this out as an area they could potentially exploit, and it’s up to Wire to come up with a way to ensure they are not caught out.

Saturday “the new rugby league day?”

Games on a Saturday used to be something of a rarity but this year, they have been anything but.

This weekend will see Wire play on a Saturday for the fifth time already this year with at least another five – hopefully six with the Challenge Cup Final – to come later in the year.

A natural consequence, perhaps, of every match being shown live hence the need to spread games out across the weekend but for supporters who have built their calendars around Friday night games for more than two decades, it is quite a change.

It means more conflict at this particular time with the football season still in full swing, but weekend fixtures are at the very least more family-friendly.