Daryl Powell: New Warrington Wolves head coach on implementing his blueprint for Super League success

Whenever you speak to anyone who has worked with Daryl Powell about what his best assets as a coach are, one area which is consistently mentioned is his ability in helping improve players.

Powell's record at Castleford Tigers over the past eight seasons is testament to that. Indeed, Paul McShane was quick to praise his boss for helping him reach the heights which saw the hooker named Man of Steel in 2020.

And it will be no different now he has taken charge at Warrington Wolves ahead of the 2022 season, tasked with guiding the club into a new era and making their long-held ambition of claiming a maiden Super League title a reality.

"On-field and off-field, everything's done exceptionally well and my job, my role, my passion is to add to that and add my own bits to it, and the way that I like to work my own style, and the way I'm as a person as well," Powell said.

"It's just trying to get all that across and really get embedded into Warrington as a place and I think I've started that process and just want to continue on with that.

"Then it's to get into the heads of the players - I think we've started that okay - and just get the best out of everybody.

"I think one of the things that I've always done well is to get the best out of individual players and if I can do all that out of these quality players, and then make sure that they combine collectively in an outstanding way, then we've got a fair team on our hands."

Every coach has his own philosophy of the way he thinks the game should be played and embedding in that is going to be the big challenge.

A small insight of just how he goes about doing that could perhaps be gleaned from the social media videos the Wolves put out from the squad's return for pre-season training, which included Powell demonstrating some simple passing and catching techniques.

It is fair to say then the former Great Britain international is a believer in the old coaching maxim of get the basics right and the rest will follow, although it is also the work he does on an individual level which plays a key role too.

One player who has already seen the benefit of that is George Williams, who sat down for a classroom session with Powell prior to the return to pre-season training and was impressed by the 56-year-old's approach.

"Daryl's teams always have the halves combine really well, so hopefully he can teach us a trick or two," Williams, whose half-back partnership with Gareth Widdop is being tipped to help take Warrington to new heights in 2022, told Sky Sports.

"He's told me the way he likes to play, and we all know he plays a good brand of rugby, so that was obviously exciting when he broke it down to me on the whiteboard.

"He just also challenged me, which is good. He told me where he wants me to get better and what he likes in the game.

"It's really good for me and I want to be challenged and want to get better, so hopefully we can get a good combination there."

Powell makes no secret of the fact he has greater resources at his disposal at Warrington compared to Castleford. But whereas his time at the Tigers was about making the most of what they had, at the Wolves it is more about respecting the facilities they have and utilising them as best as they can.

He's told me the way he likes to play, and we all know he plays a good brand of rugby, so that was obviously exciting when he broke it down to me on the whiteboard.

The opening weeks of pre-season have not been without their challenges though as injuries and players who were on international duty at the end of the year not yet set to return means the new boss has been working with around 20 players rather than over 30 as there would usually be.

Even so, he is grateful that has given him time to spend working closely with some of the younger members of the squad, with the likes of Matty Ashton - who Powell sees operating more as a winger going forward rather than at full-back - and Connor Wrench impressing already.

Powell is impressed with how the squad have readily embraced his approach too, although he concedes it will take a large part of pre-season to get the Wolves able to execute the more free-flowing, expansive approach which won so many plaudits during his time at Castleford.

"They all want us to be a really skilful team and we're going to have to work pretty hard at that, but the nuts and bolts of the way that we're going to play just takes time," Powell said.

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"Every coach has his own philosophy of the way he thinks the game should be played and embedding in that is going to be the big challenge.

"That's going to take a little bit of time but building the culture and the work ethic and all of those foundation things, they can be put in place.

"It's an embedded spine, they know each other, and we're going to play differently to the way Warrington has played in the last few years - everybody would expect that. My job is to make sure that that's knitted together in a really good way before the start of the season."