Warriors getting on top of life on road
A HANDFUL of footballs, some carry-on luggage and nowhere near enough strapping tape – the Warriors’ decision to stay on in Australia amid the coronavirus outbreak created a logistics nightmare.
The New Zealand-based club made the call following their season-opening fixture against Newcastle to stay in Australia to ensure at least that their Round 2 match with Canberra can be played.
Simply staying wasn’t enough, however.
The first issue was ensuring enough players hung around to face the Raiders at Cbus Super Stadium on the Gold
Coast on Saturday. In the end 24 players – including development youngsters and some reserves – have made it to a beachside resort on Kingscliff in northern NSW.
The club also had to get the OK to wear the away jerseys they wore against the Knights for what is, essentially, still a home fixture.
Football operations manager Dan Floyd said: “The boys only come with enough gear for a couple of days.
“We only had enough strapping tape for the weekend.
“There’s our training equipment, training jerseys for the week that we need to get here.
“Footies. We only had enough footies for a captain’s run and a game, not for a full week of training.
“Also, we’ve got boys back home. They still need to train.
“Who is training them? Where are they going to train?
“There’s just so many moving parts that we needed to consider but after the initial 24 hours we’ve got on top of it and feeling a lot better.”
Floyd said the rugby league community, including rival NRL teams, had played a huge part in ensuring the Warriors can go ahead with Saturday’s match.