Warrington's preparation for Thursday’s crunch clash with Salford involved two days celebrating their Wembley win, a Chinese meal to re-watch the game and 45 minutes training.
But coach Steve Price insists they will be ready for what has become a vital match for the Wolves’ Grand Final hopes.
The Australian boss wanted his players to savour their shock Challenge Cup triumph over St Helens, allowing them to report back on Wednesday after Monday’s open top victory parade in the town. Later that afternoon the team sat down for a meal and watched their cup final heroics together.
But Price’s focus was already turning towards a Red Devils team that has beaten them twice this season - and who will move level on points by completing a hat-trick. An unforgiving fixture switch means Warrington have had minimal chance to prepare, but their coach is determined to end a five-match losing run in Super League.
Price said: “When I heard we’d be playing the Thursday after the cup final I certainly wasn’t happy.
“There’s no duty of care there to the players. But it’s happened now, it is what it is and we’ll get the gloves back on, have a big swing and see where we end up.
“We’re playing a quality team in Salford - they’ve beaten us twice already and that does add to it, we take that quite personally. Ian Watson has done a really good job there - they play a good style of rugby.
“They have a bloke who I don't think gets the credit he deserves in full-back in Niall Evalds, Jackson Hastings is playing some solid football and they have a tradesman-like pack that works hard for each other.
“We’ve had one training session - but we’ll have a crack.”
Price has made a handful of changes to his squad, with Wembley winners Chris Hill, Mike Cooper, Toby King and Dec Patton all dropping out. Those that played on Saturday will need a huge effort to back up - Price reported that the club’s GPS monitoring against St Helens was “off the scale”, with full-back Stefan Ratchford running around 12 kilometres.
But the coach is still looking for a big display.
Price added: “We set out to be a top two Super League club at the start of the season and it’s right in front of us now. We’re not looking too much further down the track, it’s all about Salford for us now and we need another performance.”
