Richard Marshall is one of the key personnel in Warrington’s success in the 2023 season so

far with the team sitting in 2nd place, but there is still much more Marshall can offer with the
play-offs and Challenge Cup later stages approaching quickly. Marshall, born in Warrington
on the 9th of October 1975, had a stellar playing career from 1996-2007 playing for Halifax,
Huddersfield, London, Leigh, and Swinton, which saw him tally up 260 appearances
combined and scoring seven tries.

He has had a pretty good coaching career as well where he started off under Tony Smith at
Warrington where we won many Challenge Cups and League Leaders before he made a
move to education to get him where he is today. After education, he was an assistant coach
at Halifax where he got them to a Challenge Cup semi-final in 2019, before making a move
that same year across the Pennines to St. Helens where he got a Grand Final medal after
that historic Jack Welsby golden point try.

After this, he took on his first head coaching role where he coached the 2021 Salford team
who just had the departure of Ian Watson. After 22 games, Marshall left the Red Devils to
join Warrington Wolves Academy as Head Coach after Pete Riding and Paul Anderson both
leaving and bringing in Rich kick-started the fans' enjoyment back to the Academy, with
getting to the semi-final against Leeds but unfortunately missing out on the play-off Final.

After an amazing season, a juggle-around occurred amongst the coaching staff where
Marshall finds himself as a defensive coach for the first team, with Danny Evans taking the
step down to the Academy level. This has worked brilliantly with the Wire restoring the fans'
faith as they sit 2nd in the league at joint top-of-the-league, with 10 wins and four losses, and
it is something that it can be proud about.

How good is it to work at your hometown club?

I’ve been in and around Warrington pretty much my whole life and I’ve obviously had a
playing career where I’ve been in Huddersfield and London but I always lived in and around
the area. I’ve been at the club before under Tony Smith then to come back to the Academy
and that was brilliant. I love working at Warrington, I love the place, the town, the people and
loads of friends who are Warrington fans that come with pressure as well because if we lose
everyone rings me up and asks what went wrong, it’s a good time for the club at the
moment.

You just touched on it then about the Academy. You had an amazing season last year.
How good was it to work with the younger generation?

It’s important in a sport like ours that has a salary cap that you have to produce your own
players so besides working with local talent, the Academy is brilliant who is serviced with
Gary Chambers who is the Head of Youth and there is a strict environment there and they
are producing players who are going to the first team and you can see some of them making
the move to the first team such as Adam Holroyd, Leon Hayes, Josh Lynch and recently
Lucas Green which there is a lot to be excited about.

How did you get into coaching?

I finished my career with Swinton in 2007 in the lower years as a player coach so I did a year
doing that which was quite challenging because you’re telling players not to miss tackles and
then the week after I’m missing a lot of tackles so you’ve got to back what you’re saying, so I
got the appetite of doing it then. I then did a teaching degree which is very inline to coaching
and I’ve recently done a coaching master’s degree at UcLan so I enjoy it very much.

How did you find the transition from Academy and First Team?

Working with younger players in comparison to the first team when you’ve got experience
and international players with ego’s and a lot of different things. Young kids are like sponges
because they listen and absorb information whereas in the first team it’s about holding on to
their skills because they already have the skills you just try and keep then and make them
better. Everything is done at pace whereas in the Academy which is a bit slower and
everything is done at a slow pace to make the players feel at ease.

Are you more of a Ted Lasso or Brian Cluff?

I think you need a bit of both really to be a good coach to know who you want to press and
who to stay away from and when to get players and when not to. I read Alex Ferguson’s
book and by no means am I a Man United supporter, I support City and I really like Pep
Guardiola, but I think Ferguson had a tough upbringing and I think everything he did was
superb but current coach is definitely Pep because I think he powers his players and that’s
what I try really hard to do so I admire him for that.

It’s been a phenomenal season so far for the first team, and a lot of the success has
come from your involvement, it must be a good feeling?
It’s a team game, the supporters look in from and think it’s just 80 minutes at the end of the
week but it’s not there’s loads of meetings, training you name it and you only see the 80
minutes and in that time it’s usually how you train all week and I think we have dropped off in
the last couple of weeks and you can see it in the performances and we really need to get
back to how we was at the beginning of the season, however loads of champion teams have
blips throughout the season and we are going through it currently so we will work extra hard
to overcome this.

Finally, being a Warrington lad, how good is it for your hometown club doing so well
and see your fans happy?

It’s great isn’t it I see you banging the drum and singing the songs, and seeing people who
work at the club do this and love the club is fantastic and I am still a Warrington fan and that
strives me on to get success for the town. We’re all invested here and we all have a part to
play. I love being here but it comes with a lot of responsibilities and I want to win us our first
Grand Final in 60+ years.