Warrington Wolves chief executive Karl Fitzpatrick insists he is happy to take flak from irate supporters if it helps to take the pressure off Daryl Powell and his misfiring players. Fitzpatrick faced calls for his head from some fans during last Friday’s dismal defeat at Hull Kingston Rovers, which marked a fifth straight defeat in all competitions.
There has been criticism of his tenure but the former player says he has no problem with being targeted by abuse on social media or at games. “I totally get the frustrations of the fans,” Fitzpatrick told Rugby League Live.
“If abuse being aimed at me means that the pressure is going to be taken away from the team and the coach, so that they can play with freedom, then I can accept that. I’m willing to take that because this is a position which comes with great responsibility and there are big expectations at Warrington.
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“That’s great, so I totally get the frustrations and I share those frustrations too, but I’m working damn hard to turn it around. Look, having abuse levelled at me is not nice because no-one likes that – I’ve had personal e-mails telling me where to go.
“But I’ve been in professional sport a long time and I get it. People are passionate and if it takes the pressure off the coach and players, that’s fine.”
Fitzpatrick accepts the start to the season has been unacceptable for one of the richest and most ambitious clubs in the game. Powell replaced Steve Price during the off-season and his arrival encouraged hopes of a genuine title challenge this year. But the Wolves were recently dumped out of the Challenge Cup at the first hurdle and are off the pace in Super League.
Fitzpatrick admitted: “I know we won the first three games, but we’ve not performed well since the start of the season. Certainly the run of late has been poor and we’re disappointed with where we’re at. The expectations are always high at this club and rightly so because we want to be up there challenging at the end of the year – and I’m confident we will get back up there.
“We know we need to improve but we still believe we can challenge for the Super League title at the business end of the season.”
Earlier this week, Warrington spent two days working “unbelievably hard” at a training camp in York. Fitzpatrick revealed: “We had a couple of team meetings which were really open and honest and where we took account of what we have dished up so far.
“I think the players were buoyed by that and really enthused about what came out of it. Everything can change in one performance; at the moment, we are going through some growing pains. We have a whole new coaching staff who have come in and are working with the players. It’s like the players are trying to learn a new language with a new coach having come in with a new style of play and different philosophies.
“Daryl is significantly different to Steve and his style is not embedded in yet – you can see that in the performances. Everyone is really disappointed with the performances but we are on this journey with Daryl for the long haul. Daryl has got a track record of improving players and improving teams.”
Fitzpatrick added that a number of players had suffered a disrupted pre-season, saying: “It’s not an excuse, but we had a lot of operations during the off-season to a lot of key personnel.
“Throw in Covid as well and it’s been really disjointed, so Daryl has probably not had the full squad to work with until late in the day. We probably expected to start a bit slowly, but we’ve probably started slower than we even imagined. But we have every confidence in Daryl and his coaching team to turn it around.”
