Farrell hopes extra rest can ease Wigan’s England cost

Wigan backrower Liam Farrell believes that having plenty of England internationals at the club can hamper the Warriors’ start to the new season.

Farrell, like the six other members of the autumn England squad at the Wigan club, has started preseason slightly later this year, as coach Shaun Wane looks to mitigate the effects of international duty.

“Obviously the more players you have in the England team, the harder it’s going to be – and we had the most of any team in the league,” Farrell told Wigan Today.

“We need to make sure we find a way of starting pretty well because we’ve not done that for the last few years.

“However that is, we’re going to have to – if we’d have had that (solution) last year I think we’d have probably won the league.”

Farrell already feels that he is benefitting from additional time off after playing for England.

“The big thing was we had nearly seven weeks off, last year it was three weeks, and that’s a massive difference,” he explained.

“I feel a lot better for it, a lot fresher.”