Warrington have had a successful season, says Ratchford

The Wolves were forced to scrap for their Super League lives in 2017 after finishing in the bottom four but, under new coach Steve Price, reached both major finals this year.

However, Warrington’s 20-14 loss to Catalans Dragons in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley in August was followed by a 12-4 defeat by Wigan in Saturday’s Grand Final at Old Trafford.

“If you look where we were 12 months ago when we played teams like Featherstone - and no disrespect to them - we were looking at relegation,” said Ratchford.

“And, even with the way we started this year, if you had said to people in early March that Warrington Wolves would be Challenge Cup finalists, top four in Super League and Grand Finalists, they would have laughed you off the park.

“So I think we’ve got to be proud with how far we’ve come as a team and as a squad in the past 12 months.

“We weren’t quite good enough tonight but there’s a lot of positives over this last 12 months and hopefully we can build on that in the off season and pre-season and get ready for another crack at it next year.”