Daryl Powell breaks silence on Warrington Wolves' reported interest in Sam Kasiano and Gil Dudson

Warrington Wolves boss Daryl Powell has remained tight-lipped on speculation about his club’s potential signing of Catalans Dragons duo Gil Dudson and Sam Kasiano and departure of England prop Mike Cooper. Front-rows Dudson and Kasiano have been strongly linked with Warrington for 2023 while Sky Sports reported last night that Wolves veteran Cooper is set for Huddersfield Giants next term.

Powell’s side are likely to come up against the Catalans pair when they head to Perpignan in Super League tomorrow. But he said: “I've got no comment on players for next season.

“I’m obviously just focusing on what we’ve got in front of us now, which is our team playing against Catalans. And I don’t know anything about it (Cooper) to be honest. I won’t comment on that.

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“I’ll leave it to the rumour-mongers for the moment. There’s nothing I can say about that sort of stuff. I just want to focus on us playing well against Catalans.”

Warrington’s hopes of doing that are aided by the return of fit-again Stefan Ratchford who Powell confirmed would start in the halves and not at full-back. But there is no place for England stand-off Gareth Widdop.

Powell said: “He’s not far off. He’ll be available for the St Helens game. Looking at the squad and the team at the moment, Josh Thewlis has done really well at full-back and I want to give him another opportunity.”

Warrington have been notoriously inconsistent this term, losing six of their 11 games so far. They had last weekend off due to the Challenge Cup but before that were well-beaten 40-22 at home to Wigan leaving Powell frustrated by his side’s inability to maintain consistency.

“Our next two games are really challenging,”