Warrington boss Steve Price excited by Wembley final
By Press Association
Last Updated: 23/08/18 3:54pm
Warrington coach Steve Price says he has to pinch himself to make sure going to Wembley in his first season in England is no dream.
The Australian has guided the Wolves to the final of the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup at the first attempt after succeeding Tony Smith.
The 39-year-old says he was gripped by the competition before arriving at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
"I have a great admiration and respect for the Challenge Cup," he said ahead of Saturday's final against Catalans Dragons.
"When I was a young bloke, I used to get up early in the morning to watch it with my old man, who loved his rugby league.
"I went with my wife to Wembley in 2014 to watch Arsenal play Manchester City and it was fantastic. I think there were 70,000 there and it just feels like everyone is on top of it.
"Speaking to (backroom staff members) Lee Briers, Jon Clarke and Kylie Leuluai, who have played at Wembley a number of times, it's an unbelievable occasion.
"Sometimes you've got to pinch yourself that you're coaching at Wembley."
Price, who cut his coaching teeth under former Huddersfield boss Nathan Brown at St George Illawarra after seeing his playing career curtailed by a knee injury, inherited a team that had to fight for their survival in Super League after finishing in the bottom four in 2017.
The Wolves are now battling on both fronts for major honours, after their 48-12 semi-final win over Leeds, but Price has played down his own role in their revival.
"The club has been in good shape," he said. "Even before I got here, they've been banging on the door for trophies.
"We just needed to tinker with a few things and it's credit to the playing group who bought in to the changes we wanted to make."
Warrington are in their fifth final in the last 10 years and will go into it as clear favourites against a Catalans side appearing at Wembley for only the second time.
But Price said: "I wouldn't agree with that. They've won a number of games on the trot to get where they have.
"They've had two losses over the last two weeks but that will count for nothing. We're under no illusions that it's going to be a very tough game. I'd say there will be two evenly-matched football teams going hard at it."
Former England coach Steve McNamara will walk out at Wembley eternally grateful to the man who stayed loyal to him when the going got tough at Catalans Dragons.
McNamara managed to convince chairman Bernard Guasch that he needed more time to turn around the club's fortunes.
He succeeded not only in keeping Catalans in Super League without the need to go through the Qualifiers for a second successive year, but he also steered them to this weekend's surprise Challenge Cup final appearance at
Wembley.
McNamara said: "Bernard was understanding. He fully understood the issues and the problems that we had and how we were trying to implement change.
"But he did remind me that once all those changes had been made and it was my personnel and it was my systems in place, it would be my balls on the line then, as he put it.
"We had a laugh and I agreed completely because that's how it should be."
McNamara, who set himself the task of changing the culture of the players at the Perpignan club, admits he resembled a broken record as he constantly blamed disruption caused by the 2017 World Cup for his team's woeful start to the season.
"They weren't excuses, they were genuine reasons," he said. "When I took the job way back in New Zealand, I knew the situation the club was in and I knew the World Cup would make it even harder to implement change but it was a job I really wanted to do.
"We had to show some patience, brought some really good staff in, and the changes we are making are slowly starting to come though.
"But we're a long way off being finished. We've got a long way to go as a club to establish ourselves amongst the elite rugby league teams in our competition."
After losing 10 of their first 13 matches, McNamara's men went on to finish the regular season with just two defeats from their last 10 to secure a top-eight finish.
That afforded the coach the opportunity to focus all his attention on the cup. And after their 35-16 win over hot favourites St Helens in the semi-finals at Bolton, McNamara effectively wrote off the last two Super 8s fixtures which including a 56-6 hammering against their final opponents Warrington.
"I make no apologies for what we did," he said. "We had an extremely tough programme, We were in must-win games every week, including the Challenge Cup.
"Once we got secure in the top eight, it was all about preparing for that semi-final the best way we could, and after that it was about preparing for the final the best way we could."
