Assessing Karl Fitzpatrick's time as CEO so far

The 1st January 2017 saw Karl Fitzpatrick become CEO of the Warrington Wolves after previously working as head of rugby operations. 1182 days and 109 Wire matches later, I have produced my assessment and analysis of his time in the role so far.

Being CEO of the club is an all-encompassing role and has many facets to it. With this in mind, I have split this article into ten sub-sections, judging Fitzpatrick on his work in each category. In preparation for writing this, I took to Twitter and Facebook to garner some fan opinions on Fitzpatrick and his tenure so far. Some of the comments I have received are reflected in this piece.

Upon being appointed CEO, Fitzpatrick said "it is a privilege and an honour to be promoted in to this position. Based on a philosophy of continuous improvement and actively listening to our sponsors and supporters I will be part of a great team that will proceed to enhance the Warrington brand." Towards the end of the piece, I will assess Fitzpatrick on his own aims, but before then, I will explore the aforementioned ten categories.

Now then, let's get started...

On-field Results

While the results, performances and progress on the pitch are primarily the responsibility of the coaching staff and the players, the CEO is a figurehead for the club and is in charge of putting together a coaching and playing group capable of competing. Wire finished 9th in Fitzpatrick's first year as CEO, also Tony Smith's last season as coach. This disastrous season was followed by a better one in 2018 under the guidance of new coach Steve Price, who led the team to a 4th placed finish and a trip to both finals - though neither were successful. Price's second season and Fitzpatrick's third looked set to be the club's best in years - with Wire comfortably 2nd at the midway mark of the year and on the tails of St Helens. However, a disastrous second half of the campaign resulted in the Wolves finishing 4th before embarrassingly exiting the playoffs in the first round at home to Castleford. There was some joy to be had in 2019 though, with Wire producing a heroic Wembley performance to beat St Helens 18-4 and claim the club's ninth Challenge Cup on a highly memorable day which at least meant the season wasn't a complete write-off. The team have made an inconsistent start to 2020, with four wins and three losses, though have shown considerable improvement in recent weeks and have recorded impressive wins over St Helens, Castleford and Hull FC. Under Fitzpatrick the club have finished 9th, 4th, 4th and stand 4th in 2020 too. No finish in the top 3 in that period is borderline criminal for a club with the quality of squad and resources available to them and though Wire have been to three of six finals available in the CEO's time here, only one piece of silverware has been brought home, which when combined with the less-than-impressive placings in the league and the lack of an exciting style of rugby, isn't enough to constitute a hit.

VERDICT: MISS

Matchday Experience

I enjoy going to the Halliwell Jones Stadium. It's arguably the best stadium in Super League in terms of aesthetics and is a great place to watch rugby league. There are some that say that Fitzpatrick hasn't done anything to modernise or improve the stadium in his time as CEO, but I would say that as the ground is fairly young anyway, changes aren't really necessary. In terms of the matchday experience though, things are pretty good and have improved under Fitzpatrick. Pre-match entertainment has been really good in the last few seasons, particularly for the big games against St Helens and Wigan where we've seen fireworks and the like to build the atmosphere. I particularly enjoyed the decision to give each home fixture a theme - bad blood for the Wigan game last season, the greatest show for Wakefield in June of 2019, international women's day for the recent Castleford game. I think things like these really add to the atmosphere and encourage people to get in the ground early and soak it all in. Half-time entertainment like the Wire flyer just brings something a little bit different to the time at the stadium. There have been a few changes this season to the catering options, which have been criticised by some, but overall the matchday experience at the HJ is excellent. 

VERDICT: HIT

Marketing and Social Media

Arguably Fitzpatrick's biggest success as CEO has been the club's use of social media and marketing. Warrington's Twitter account is absolute gold at times and always manages to create attention, which is never a bad thing. Getting darts player Michael Smith involved in promoting a fixture against his team, St Helens, was a masterstroke and the stunts involving planes, Wolfie and bad blood press conferences are very welcome. The club are worlds ahead of every other Super League team in terms of what they do on social media and how they promote matches. It's clearly working too, as average attendances at the Halliwell Jones have increased every year that Fitzpatrick has been CEO and last year, averaged over 11,000 for the first time. Three times in 2019 Wire got a crowd of over 13,000 - against Leeds and Wigan early in the year before attracting 14,211 to the June home clash with St Helens - the highest attendance at the HJ for more than three years. Perhaps most impressive is how Fitzpatrick has managed to fill the stadium against opponents with low away following by promoting the games and tickets in different ways - 11,718 against London and 10,445 against Huddersfield last season, while this February's Toronto game brought in a crowd of 11,182 - very impressive. There are some who feel that Fitzpatrick focuses too much on marketing and social media and not enough on on-field issues like player recruitment, but there's no denying that the CEO's work is paying dividends on matchday. 

VERDICT: HIT

Recruitment

While Fitzpatrick has been CEO, Warrington have signed 21 players, a group of players which I have sectioned into five categories: Successes, for players whose time at the club can be judged as positive, 50/50s, for those first-team players upon whom the jury is still out, Positive youth, which is for those young players who have shown enough to suggest that they will end up in the successes category one day and finally Poor signings, for the players that didn't work out or perform well in their time at Wire.

Successes: Bryson Goodwin, Matt Davis, Josh Charnley, Blake Austin, Gareth Widdop.

50/50s: Ben Murdoch-Masila, Jason Clark, Jake Mamo, Anthony Gelling.

Positive youth: Luis Johnson, Keanan Brand, Matty Ashton, Danny Walker.

Poor signings: Ben Pomeroy, Sitaleki Akauola, Lama Tasi, Tyrone Roberts, Bodene Thompson, Mitch Brown, Matty Smith, Luther Burrell, Samy Kibula, Leilani Latu. 

With only five of Fitzpatrick's 23 signings being judged as successes and nine of them falling into the 'poor' category, this is extremely concerning and doesn't reflect well on Fitzpatrick. In many cases these signings were not received well by fans and were deemed to be underwhelming purchases. Too many times Wire have signed players that either aren't of the standard needed, or not filled the gaps and areas that needed addressing. 

VERDICT: MISS

Contracts and Salary Cap

On a similar topic to the last one, how well has Fitzpatrick done with managing the club's contracts and salary cap? I (and I know I am not alone in this) have felt for a while that one of the main issues around the club is an imbalance in the squad due to a mismanaged salary cap - with too many on sky-high wages, which in turn leads many other players to be low-wage ones, naturally creating a reliance on a select few members of the squad to get results - something which we've certainly seen in recent years - Stefan Ratchford, Daryl Clark, Blake Austin and Mike Cooper spring to mind as players who at times have carried the rest of the team and Gareth Widdop could soon be added to that list. The club have cleverly gone about exploiting loopholes within the rules to acquire the services of Luther Burrell and always manage to stay within the cap despite spending big on players and recruits from the NRL. On the topic of contracts though, there have been occasions when players have been awarded new deals when it has seemed completely unnecessary - Jake Mamo given a new deal after playing just five games, Ben Pomeroy being signed permanently and then released at the end of the year. Very frustrating, particularly when the likes of Chris Sandow, Andre Savelio, Peta Hiku, Benjamin Jullien and Bryson Goodwin were let go and didn't sign new contracts - all of whom would've been useful players to have. 

VERDICT: MISS

Grassroots, Academy and Women's Team

The topics of grassroots and academy are often used interchangeably but they refer to different things. With that in mind, I'm going to look at each of them. Grassroots production of rugby league players has been an issue at Warrington for as long as I can remember, with the most promising players often ending up moving to St Helens or Wigan at an early age. So far, there isn't evidence to suggest that much has changed on that front, but if changes are made at grassroots level, it is likely to be years before we actually see the effects of these changes. The academy at Wire is often a major talking point among fans of the club. In comparison to Wigan, Leeds, St Helens, Hull FC and Castleford, Wire hardly ever produce players of a high enough standard to play for the first team. Ben Currie, Joe Philbin and Toby King are examples from recent years, but under Fitzpatrick, only Josh Thewlis and Riley Dean have made their Super League debuts from the academy - I don't include Luis Johnson as he was purchased from the Castleford academy. This clearly isn't enough and we haven't seen a single player from the academy establish themselves as anything more than a one-off in the first team under Fitzpatrick - rather than invest in our grassroots and our youth players, Wire look to older, more expensive players with perhaps less motivation - a strategy that is yet to pay off. Don't forget that Jonny Lomax, James Roby, Tommy Makinson, Mark Percival and Morgan Knowles all came through the Saints academy and Liam Farrell, Liam Marshall, Sam Powell, George Williams, Morgan Smithies and Oliver Gidart have all made it through the ranks at Wigan, while Castleford have produced Jake Trueman, arguably the most exciting youngster in Super League in recent years. On a more positive note, Fitzpatrick has done an excellent job in the set-up of the women's team, coached by Ben Westwood, and they achieved promotion to the Women's Super League in their first year on the circuit. 

VERDICT: MISS

Community Work

In the current crisis that the world finds itself in, it has been heartwarming to see Warrington's response - working hard to look after its fans - particularly the elderly and vulnerable, with Steve Price and Ben Westwood personally calling the club's season ticket holders to check in with them and offer their help. These are the kinds of things that Warrington do so well and make them such a valuable part of the community in the area. It's not just in times of crisis though, for Wire are a part of the community all year long - look at the community challenge the whole squad engaged in before the start of this season and the work they do with local schools. It's very impressive to see the work the club put into its local area and this has extended to sport in the town too - with one game each year being designated as the 'community club day', where young players and coaches of local rugby league clubs are invited to attend the game for a very small price. One of the best things the club has done in recent times with the community is embrace the RFL's project of Offload, supporting mental health work, with the club opening the Halliwell Jones Stadium to people who wish to speak about their mental health. The club is a massive part of the community and Karl Fitzpatrick has to take huge credit for that. 

VERDICT: HIT

Relationship with Fans

The club have established an open, honest relationship with fans during Fitzpatrick's time at the club. Fans were consulted on what changes they wanted to the matchday experience at the end of 2019 and the supporters are regularly asked for their opinions on things. I listened to the recent fans' forum to finish last season, and of all the people who spoke, I was most impressed with Fitzpatrick, who showed genuine care for fans' concerns and answered questions well. He expressed regret over not being able to prevent season ticket holders from having to pay for last year's playoff game against Castleford, explaining that as this was a Super League event rather than a Warrington season match, it was out of his hands. The CEO regularly praises the Wire fans' efforts in supporting the team and shows plenty of passion for the club too. Towards the end of last year, Fitzpatrick appeared on What would Brian Bevan say? podcast and spoke at great length, answering everything that was asked of him. Fitzpatrick has been known to personally invite his critics in the fanbase to spend a day with him and discuss their concerns with them, which I really admire. In the last few days too, Wire have launched their new TV service, showing classic matches in full to subscribers (if you haven't already, sign up, it's brilliant). This is a huge tick.

VERDICT: HIT

Coaching Staff

Only a matter of months into Fitzpatrick's tenure as CEO was it announced that Tony Smith would be leaving the club at the end of 2017 after nine years as coach. This was a mutual decision and the timing was probably right for Smith to leave, legend though he had become. Then it was up to Fitzpatrick to find a suitable replacement, and he set off to Australia in search of Warrington's next coach, securing the appointment of Steve Price. The jury is still out on Price after a mixed two-and-a-bit seasons in charge and there are those that believe Fitzpatrick should've disposed of Price at the end of 2019. There were also murmurs of unrest between Price and assistant Lee Briers earlier this season, which isn't great. While Price hasn't been completely disastrous by any means - the man has taken us to three finals and won a cup - it isn't asking a lot to expect Fitzpatrick to find Wire a coach to get the team into the top three at any point. 

VERDICT: MISS

Ambition

I have no doubt that Fitzpatrick has plenty of ambition for Wire to be a top club challenging for - and winning - major honours. At the end of 2019, there appeared to be some disagreement between Fitzpatrick and Price about the merits of the season, with the CEO saying the season could not be seen as a success due to the league form, while the coach felt that winning the Challenge Cup was enough to avoid the season being judged as a failure. I was pleased to hear this from Fitzpatrick as I felt it would've been very easy for him to claim the season was a success, when in actual fact it wasn't - this showed that he wants better. The CEO took a fair bit of stick for a comment he made before the start of this season where he stated that he expected Wire to beat Wigan three times out of three ahead of the season-opening fixture. At the time I wasn't too impressed with this as I thought it was a jinxy comment which would look silly if we were to lose, as we did, but as time has gone on I've grown to quite like the confidence and bullishness of the statement. Fitzpatrick certainly has the ambition for Wire to do well. My concern is whether the work he does helps fulfil his ambition. Is his recruitment positive or ambitious enough to achieve what he wants to? I don't think so. He has the ambition and the drive, but we need to see it backed up more.

VERDICT: HIT

Now comes the part where I have to summarise and assess Fitzpatrick as a whole. As mentioned at the top of the piece, he spoke about 'continuous improvement' when starting his role, something which has happened in certain aspects but not in others. He stresses the importance of 'actively listening to our sponsors and supporters', something which he is definitely doing - securing the sponsorship of Hoover this season as well as continuing to work with O'Neills, Halliwell Jones and others, such as the players' sponsors. He finishes by saying he will 'enhance the Warrington brand'. This has definitely happened through his work with the marketing side of things. All in all, everything that doesn't concern the performance of the team is positive - stadium, marketing, PR, fans and community work. Where Fitzpatrick falls down is in the on-field stuff - the results, recruitment, contracts, academy work. This is a man who is clearly extremely passionate about the club and works his backside off to achieve things, but perhaps someone better suited to a role that doesn't involve identifying and picking players, coaches and signings, because those are the areas that he hasn't got a great strike rate in so far. For me, the club could re-align things slightly and create a director of rugby-type role, and that person oversees recruitment and the academy work, leaving Fitzpatrick to focus on the business, community and marketing work - which he is superb at. 

My main fear is that I struggle to see us winning a Grand Final with Fitzpatrick in his current role. Having said that, I can't stress enough what a good asset I think he is to the club and I certainly think he could be better deployed in a slightly modified role - which can be said of many of the players too!

Thank you for taking the time to read this piece, one of my biggest yet. I would love to hear your feedback and comments on it - what are your thoughts on Fitzpatrick?

Daniel (@aloosewire)