Ratchford excited by new Super League structure

Warrington utility player Stefan Ratchford is looking forward to the new Super League season, and believes that new structure will improve the competition.

The aim of the restructure was to guarantee that every game would be significant in some way, and Ratchford thinks that this will help generate more intensity.

“I think it’s going to benefit the competition. Obviously there are fewer teams so the teams that are in the competition are really strong,” he told Sky Sports News.

“When it gets to July and it splits it to a top eight, you can see that you can’t afford to do anything besides hit the ground running.”

Ratchford also feels that Warrington have recruited well in the close season, and will be challenging for honours in 2015.

“We’re confident. We’ve always been a confident group and in 2012 and 2013 we came up just short having been in good positions to win the game,” he added.

“We’ve got two or three good recruits with Daryl Clark, Ashton Sims and Gary Wheeler. We’ve lost Michael Monaghan who is real quality but we’ve signed the current Man of Steel, so he’s going to be a really good signing for us.

“Wigan have been made the favourites and if you speak to them, they’ll try and put the tag off. They’ve been a strong side the last few years.

“As for Catalans, Todd Carney has been a player of the year in the NRL and he’s going to be a challenge to play against.”