COME ON HOME BOYS

Rugby league: The Kiwis who the Warriors could bring back from Australia

Tony Iro

Looking at which players have been recruited by the Warriors over the last few years, it’s clear there’s been a change of policy at the club.

Instead of going for big name Australian players like Todd Carney (who turned them down), or English stars such as Sam Tomkins (who was a flop), the Warriors have been trying to lure back New Zealanders from other NRL clubs.

It’s an approach that’s paying off, with Tohu Harris, Roger TuivasaSheck, Ligi Sao, Issac Luke, James Gavet, Kieran Foran and Bodene Thompson all being tempted to return to New Zealand.

To sign Australian players the Warriors have sometimes had to pay overs on what the player would get at a Sydney club.

Tony Iro, the Warriors’ recruitment and development manager, acknowledges the Warriors will always be a harder sell to Australian players.

‘‘For a lot of the Aussie boys, a move here is a massive shift for them,’’ Iro said.

‘‘It’s a bit different for the [New Zealand] boys who’ve left here and may potentially come back for family and friends and sometimes that’s an easier fit.

‘‘As long as we can keep finding some of the Kiwi boys who might be looking for a shift back home, sometimes it’s the best thing to be doing.’’

Steve Price, Micheal Luck, Brent Tate and Kevin Campion were the most successful Australians to play for the Warriors, while Jacob Lillyman has been an outstanding servant over his 170 games for the club.

‘‘Like most clubs, we’ve made approaches to Aussies and Kiwis and sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t,’’ Iro said.

‘‘For us, it is as much more difficult proposition, in convincing the Australian boys to come here.

‘‘Especially with the Sydney boys, where there are another seven or eight clubs to look at.

‘‘That’s been the case with the few that I’ve dealt with over the last 18 months. Their families are there (in Sydney), their kids are in school there, so it’s a big transition.’’

Former Warriors coach Matt Elliott said back in 2013 that he didn’t realise how tough it would be to sign Australian players and blamed that on perception they had of Auckland.

‘‘I am learning about this, because I’ve been speaking to player managers and players,’’ he said a couple of months into his first season with the club.

‘‘My perception of Auckland [before coming] was the Crown Plaza and Mt Smart Stadium, so I didn’t think Auckland was the beautiful city it is.

‘‘You get in a bus and go to an industrial estate and play at Mt Smart, which was always a pretty daunting experience.

‘‘So there is this blockage about blokes coming here.’’

Four years on and little has changed, but Iro says those who do sign with the Warriors come to realise that New Zealand is a special place.

‘‘I think if you talk to every Australian player who’s been here, Auckland has been an eye opener for them,’’ he said.

‘‘They haven’t really experienced the city before and it is a great city.

‘‘If you look at guys like Chad Townsend and James Maloney,

For a lot of the Aussie boys, a move here is a massive shift for them.

family was the reason why they headed back to Australia.

‘‘That’s not going to go away and for me, we should be developing our own players anyway.’’

Iro says there are a number of reasons why Kiwi players choose to return to New Zealand and they can depend on how long they’ve been away for.

For some, it’s being able to be closer to their families.

For Warriors captain Roger Tuivasa-Sheck it was the opposite. His family all relocated to Sydney when he was signed by the Roosters and he chose to come to the Warriors to become more independent.

‘‘Some are more keen than others,’’ Iro said.

‘‘Some have established themselves over there and almost become naturalised Australians and their wider family may have also moved over there and have kids in schools.

‘‘You know what you’re going to encounter when you’re trying to recruit someone, but there are all sorts of different reasons why a guy is going to come, or not even consider it.’’