Blame game goes on and on as Warriors sink deeper
OPINION: So there’s a couple of things about Stephen Kearney’s latest comments.
Having guided the Warriors to a humiliating 26-10 to last-placed Newcastle on Saturday, coach Kearney’s response was to round on a few players. They weren’t trying, apparently, and might not have a future at the club. Dangerous ground, that.
When players stop putting in for a coach and don’t respond to his messages and urgings, then it doesn’t tend to be them that ends up walking. The Warriors have lost five games on the trot and each week various players vow to silence critics and Kearney talks tough about attitude and effort, and yet the result remains the same.
It’s rare that publicly criticising players works these days. They tend to be a more sensitive breed than their predecessors and to withdraw in the face of harsh words.
There are plenty of apologists who’ll tell you Kearney has a hard row to hoe and needs time to embark on an overdue cleanout of the roster. That might be the case. It’s just that these same folk were telling us at the start of the season the Warriors had the team to contend for the title.
Who knows if New South Wales coach Laurie Daley is good at his job. What we can say for sure is that this year’s State of Origin campaign had some hiccups and that one or two players let themselves down.
Yet Daley, under strong interrogation, sat in a TV studio last week and took full responsibility for the team’s failings. If guys made bad decisions, it was because he hadn’t educated them well enough about what the right ones might be.
People say the culture within that NSW team is rotten, but at least the coach isn’t blaming anyone else for their problems.
The answer
Now we read Broncos prop Adam Blair can cure the Warriors’ ills.
One of the actual on-field issues the teams faces is a lack of goforward. Blair doesn’t fix that. He can ball-play and has an offload and is busy defensively, but he doesn’t lay the platform that halves need to play off.
Blair also has an unfortunate habit of doing things that injure opponents. Broncos great Gorden Tallis is one long-time critic of that trait.
The names Steve Price and Ruben Wiki have been invoked to illustrate the off-field impact and leadership Blair could provide the Warriors. Fair enough, but does anyone remember Ryan Hoffman?
A Melbourne Storm great, and Australia and NSW representative, he was going to work wonders at the Warriors. Aussie grit, nous, work-ethic and leadership were what the club lacked and Hoffman would provide them in spades.
Only Hoffman - one of the modern era’s great hole-runners has been poorly utilised on the park by the Warriors and is now being shipped out at season’s end, with the Storm an early favourite to re-sign him.
Blair is 31 and after one last big contract, which the Broncos are so far reluctant to provide. There’s probably something in that.
Around the grounds
The big result of round 23 came at Southern Cross Group Stadium, where home side Cronulla were tipped up 30-12 by the Raiders.
The Storm are this year’s most impressive team but, of the chasing pack, it’s the fourth-placed Sharks who’ve loomed as the most likely challengers. Their form has been very up and down of late, though, including a big loss to the lowly Titans.
Elsewhere, the suspect Sydney Roosters were shown up as Manly kept them scoreless for the last 48 minutes en route to a much-needed 36-18 victory. The banged up Cowboys had a big loss to the Storm, the Panthers got up late against the Tigers, the Eels beat the Bulldogs in a poor game, with the Rabbitohs doing the same against the Dragons.
The Titans lost 54-0 to the Broncos.