Warriors: ‘Another year down the drain’
Three young rising NRL stars give Michael Burgess a frank assessment of their disappointing season in 2019 . . .
Jazz Tevaga admits it is another “year down the drain” for the Warriors. Sam Lisone feels they are still missing the “GOAT”. Agnatius Paasi says the team can “switch off” on game day.
As the Warriors search for answers, with their finals hopes extinguished by back to back drubbings from the Roosters and the Sharks, the frank words from some of their younger players are refreshing.
Where some of the senior men tend to spin familiar cliches, Tevaga, Lisone and Paasi didn’t hold back with their verdicts on the club’s 2019 season.
After a positive run in June and July, the Warriors have hit a brick wall this month, conceding more than 40 points in heavy defeats against the Raiders, Roosters and Sharks.
“She’s not pretty to watch,” said Tevaga. “It’s frustrating because we are a better team than that. It’s hard to gauge how we train so well and then come out on the field and it is shit, really.”
Asked why the team had nose-dived over the past fortnight, Tevaga didn’t fudge his answer.
“There’s lot of things,” he said. “Pressure on us making finals, the care for the jumper — that’s gone missing, a bit of enjoyment is missing as well and there’s trust issues.
“It’s not just one person, it’s us collectively. It was tough to find out why. We are not getting our jobs done, not doing the little things. It just compounds, it’s an infection. One thing leads to another thing, [the] next thing you know we are two or three tries down and it’s like ‘shit, here we go again’. . .”
Tevaga, who has featured in 20 games in 2019 despite a persistent ankle problem, is adamant the squad was good enough.
“It’s not nice because we worked so hard this year,” said Tevaga. “We towelled up Manly, who [beat] the Raiders, who smacked us. We just lost in Melbourne, [then] the close games against Penrith and the Broncos [at Mt Smart], the Parra game [at Bankwest].
“It all counts. And it’s just like another year down the drain, and all that hard work gone to waste.”
The consistent Paasi, who will play his 100th NRL game tonight against
Souths, admits their inability to transfer training ground intensity to the match has been frustrating.
“Against the Sharks, it felt like it was
the same as the Roosters,” said Paasi. “When things got hard we tended to switch off. We have a good training session during the week and then
come to game day it’s way different.”
Paasi hinted that the cumulative pressure of the season had taken it’s toll.
“Things haven’t gone our way,” said Paasi. “The wins we have really had to scrap out and the losses hurt us a little bit and it builds and it builds.
“Losing Tohu [Harris] didn’t help [the Kiwis forward has been out since midJune]. He is one of the leaders and builds his game on defence.”
For his part, Lisone lamented the absence of 301-game Warriors legend Simon Mannering.
“What’s changed? We are missing the GOAT [Mannering],” said Lisone. “You don’t know how good he was. All the little things and his leadership, especially. Probably in the middle we haven’t been as good, we have been struggling there a bit.”
But all insist the squad is motivated to end the campaign on a high, starting with tonight’s match against the Rabbitohs at Mt Smart Stadium.
“We want to finish the year off well,” said Lisone. “If you lose, you have that bitter taste for the whole break and you start pre-season on a low.”
Although the Warriors haven’t enjoyed much success against South Sydney, with last season’s win in Perth their first over the Rabbitohs since 2012, Lisone has some happy personal memories.
He broke a 63-game NRL try-scoring duck when he busted through in round one last year, then got his second career touchdown in the 28-24 defeat in Gosford earlier this season.
“My first try against them, [my] first try this year, some nice memories,” said Lisone. “Hopefully I get one, or put my roomie Iggy [Paasi] in for one.”