Warriors press the restart button

Come 5pm this evening the curtain will finally fall on the longest eight weeks of Cameron George’s working life.

There have been many tough times in the Warriors’ 26 years of existence from ownership battles and financial struggles that went close to ending the club, but the Covid-19 pandemic fallout can rival them all.

George has been front and centre, right from the day when management found out during the first-round loss to Newcastle that their players wouldn’t be going home just over 10 weeks ago to trying to get them home when the NRL was suspended.

From providing a meals-on-wheels service to players’ families when he returned to Auckland and the players didn’t, to the never-ending negotiations with the NRL, Governments and just about everybody in-between to facing up to the stigma that he would be forever known as the man at the helm if the Warriors withdrew from the NRL.

The challenges for the club have been confronting, intimidating and threatening to its future.

‘‘It’s been a long time coming,’’ George told Stuff of the Warriors finally returning to the field.

‘‘You look at the calendar and go ‘well, it’s been eight weeks’ but it feels like it’s been a lifetime with all the

challenges the club has had to endure . . . it feels a lot longer than that.’’

As he reflects on some of the decisions the club has had to make within that period, one word comes to mind: ‘‘Unprecedented.’’

George knows there are plenty more challenges on and of the field to come in 2020.

‘‘Saturday will be a telling factor

for a lot of reasons,’’ he says.

When the Warriors run onto Central Coast Stadium to play the Dragons, George will be 2156km away at his home just outside Auckland with his partner Emma and their young daughter Stella-Rose.

There’s little doubt he owes them some time after the trials and tribulations of the last two months but

after getting emotional when he saw his players separated from their families as they boarded the flight to Tamworth on May 3, George isn’t complaining.

‘‘It’s definitely not about me, mate,’’ George says as he redirects a Stuff question back to his players and staff in Australia and their families stuck back in Auckland.

‘‘We’re all riding a lot of emotion at our club and the players and their families are driving that which we’re all very proud of.

‘‘It’s a club achievement and one that I feel like until we’d been thrown this adversity, that a lot of people in the rugby league fraternity and in sport on both sides of the Tasman didn’t think we had it in us.

‘‘I always knew that we did. ‘‘So to navigate our way through all this with our players, our families and our staff . . . the credibility our club has received from it makes us all very proud but not surprised.

‘‘I feel like we’ve awoken the world to what our club culture is about.’’

As a club, George said the

Warriors have helped maximise the NRL’s potential.

‘‘Without us, we were probably going to jeopardise a lot of people’s jobs, a lot of people’s livelihoods and a lot of fans’ excitement and passion around the game so it’s a great achievement by the club from owners right through to players and families.’’

‘‘You look at the calendar and go ‘well, it’s been eight weeks’ but it feels like it’s been a lifetime.’’ Cameron George Warriors CEO