Generational crisis at Warriors demands massive change
Adam Blair. Really? There’s an apocalyptic crisis at the Warriors, and their solution is more of the same via a 31-year-old Broncos forward past his best who — and he won’t be the first — can secure inflated final-contract wages because the Auckland club are desperate straw-clutchers.
Here’s my solution: Eric Watson sells the club, and lets a new owner, or group of owners, start from scratch. They might even drop the Warriors, and try a new name.
Time is also up for chief executive Jim Doyle, whose speciality seems to be fantasy-land pronouncements and bringing old mates to town.
This needs to be treated as a bigpicture crisis not the chance for another grandiose, futile player announcement.
Watson’s initially promising rescue of the Warriors — which means he virtually owns the game in this country — has turned into a hell-hole of a disaster.
Another run of lame NRL defeats via boring football under the stewardship of Steve Kearney — who should never have been appointed coach in the first place — has the club in such dire trouble that I’d suggest the prognosis is terminal.
The Warriors haven’t just again failed to make the playoffs. They have failed to raise the pulse at all. Most of their scant seven victories have been against other struggling clubs, and even the traditional State of Origin-related surge failed to materialise.
These poor results have been exacerbated by boring, heavily-patterned football, designed by a coach who has translated his stints at methodical Melbourne and Wayne Bennett’s Brisbane into dross dressed up by the odd Shaun Johnson cameo. In reward for his role as the ineffective jester, Johnson gets to call himself a $1 million man.
They are rocketing towards an audience of two men and a dog watching a dog, and my sadness at this runs as deep as the problems.
I hate to pick on new-ish forward Bunty Afoa, because he’s a young bloke devoid of blame. But if the bog standard Afoa represents what the Warriors development programme is all about, they might as well pack up the tent, and let all Kiwi league fans go back to supporting Aussie clubs as many of them still do.
I agree a contingent of players steeled in Australia is vital, as other commentators have opined, although recent recruitment lacks the inspiration and insight which brought the likes of Kevin Campion, Steve Price, Micheal Luck and James Maloney to Auckland. But the formula should involve a contingent of brilliant locals, something that isn’t emphasised enough.
The Warriors’ past included a vein of x-factor — Stacey Jones, Manu Vatuvei, Henry Fa’ afili, Francis Meli, Ali Lauitiiti, Sam Rapira, Lance Hohaia, Motu Tony, Nigel Vagana, Jerome Ropati, Ben Matulino, Konrad Hurrell et al. Nowadays those types end up at other NRL clubs.
You could only watch with horror as admirable Mason Lino battled his limitations in first grade, while offering one of the better short kicking games we’ve ever seen from a Warrior. When another halfback, Stacey Jones, made his debut more than 20 years ago, we all knew it was the start of a potentially brilliant era. Lino? He is just as likely to be playing for Salford in two years’ time.
Chief among the sporting crimes has been the hiring of troubled Kieran Foran, who started negotiating with other clubs a few rounds into the current season. Foran’s recruitment, to use the term very loosely, came with the stamp of approval from Kearney who — and I still can’t believe any head coach would say this — seemed to regard Foran’s health as the only issue.
Yet Kearney, whose brief head coaching record at Parramatta was awful, had the audacity to accuse some of his own players of not trying against Newcastle last week, having plonked the uncommitted Foran and his destabilising influence in their midst in the first place.
Meanwhile Doyle’s blatant policy is recruiting people he knows can produce the odd result — Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was a terrific get but apart from that the team gets fried.
Look at the club under Watson’s ownership of late: the Owen Glenn coownership disaster, a crazy football advisory board featuring Sir Graham Henry, the ridiculous choice of Kearney over bringing back Ivan Cleary, the Foran disgrace, Johnson’s inflated wages.
If Watson sells up, who steps up? Can’t answer that, sorry.
Maybe John Hart, whose underrated directorship underpinned the eventually successful Cleary coaching era, can be persuaded to help put something together. That’s all I can offer — more straw-clutching.