ARE Warrington Wolves particularly invested in their starts to games under Sam Burgess?
There appears to be a growing body of evidence to support that theory, with Sunday’s thrashing of London Broncos perhaps the clearest example.
The Wire scored three times in the opening 12 minutes to establish a lead the Broncos were never likely to overhaul, while they unleashed a similar purple patch at the start of the second half.
That got us thinking about periods of games that have been the most profitable for Warrington in the opening weeks, so here’s what we found when we broke down the times in which the team have been scoring and conceding tries…
The opening quarter of matches has indeed been a strength of The Wire’s so far, with seven tries scored and only two conceded between the first and 20th minutes.
Indeed, they have only seen the opening score go against them once in the early rounds courtesy of Josh Simm’s opener for Castleford Tigers at The Halliwell Jones Stadium in Round Three.
However, it is the final 20 minutes of matches where they have perhaps been most impressive – eight of their 27 tries have come between the 61st and 80th minutes.
By contrast, they have conceded just once in the final quarter of their games thus far – Tom Opacic’s 61st-minute try for Hull KR in Round Four.
The aforementioned period after the break against the Broncos was the first game this season in which Warrington have not conceded in the 20 minutes immediately after half time.
Of the 11 tries they have let through, eight have come in the periods either side of the interval – four each in the 21st to 40th and 41st to 60th minutes.
By contrast, they have scored six tries each in both of those periods.
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