All change at Warrington, Smith confirms

Warrington coach Tony Smith has acknowledged this his squad is in a period of serious transition, with players, including Richie Myler and Chris Bridge, being confirmed as leaving the club in the last few days.

Myler is heading to Catalans Dragons, while Bridge will be at Widnes next season. There are also media reports that Chris Sandow is being targeted by the Wolves.

Smith a believes that every squad has to evolve and develop over time by sensibly changing its personnel.

“For sure,” said Smith, when asked if the Wolves were ‘rebooting’ their squad.

“It’s a bit of need to change. We have changed a fair bit.

“We had an aging team for the last few years – and they did really well, the older boys – we had a number of players that hit retirement age and we had to let go.

“We’ve been bringing some young guys through, and it’s a different mix of players now.

“You’ve got to re-grow and reboot as you need to. You’ve got to make some adjustments, because it’s not an easy process to replace a Lee Briers, or a Brett Hodgson, or an Adrian Morley overnight.

“Those things take time, and those people took a number of years to develop that sort of experience themselves, so some of the boys need a little time to do that.

“But sometimes it changes the way players play without some of those people being about.

We’ve had a couple of recruits already, and we’ll have a couple more before we finish.”

Smith is expecting Myler to thrive at Catalans, and take his career to the next level.

“For Richie it’s good that he’s got another option now to go to and develop and play with another experienced half-back,” he added.

“Richie went from playing with Lee Briers, whom he complemented enormously, to having to try to run the show, and he’s found that a little bit difficult here.

“Whereas when he goes to the Catalans he’s got Todd Carney to work with. That probably suits his style a whole lot more.”