Warriors restart season: Kearney
Coach Stephen Kearney says he won’t be drawing on the fact the Warriors defeated the Panthers 36-16 two weeks ago when the two sides clash again this weekend in Sydney.
The Warriors outclassed the Panthers in that game at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland, but Kearney says that won’t count for anything on Saturday in the first week of the NRL finals.
‘‘It’s a different competition now,’’ Kearney said.
‘‘We’re going to park what we’ve achieved in the last 25 weeks. We’ll take some good stuff out of it, but we’ll approach this week like we have almost every other week. It’s about preparing well, to play well against Penrith.’’
However, the Warriors will take momentum into the finals. They and the Sharks are the only teams in the top eight to have won at least four of their last five games.
‘‘It’s better going into the finals having won, rather than lost games,’’ Kearney said. ‘‘But the reality is that it’s a new competition. We feel like we’re in a good spot, but we’ve got to prepare well to perform well on Saturday night.’’
Simon Mannering (sternum) and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (ankle) both picked up injuries in last Friday’s 20-16 win over the Raiders.
Kearney said while they would be keeping a eye on them over the week, he expected them to be available for Saturday.
‘‘We’ll monitor them both closely and my expectation is that they’ll be ready to play.
‘‘But we’ll see how they go, we’ll give them every opportunity to play and now we know we’re playing on Saturday, we’ve got our week worked out in terms of training days.’’
Kearney also said yesterday that five-eighth Blake Green would be back from his injury to partner Shaun Johnson in the halves.
‘‘At a pinch, he could have played
last weekend, but it would have been a risk,’’ he said.
‘‘We didn’t want to take that risk with him and I know he was devastated, given that it was a big game for the footy club, for Simon [Mannering] and he wanted to be a part of it, but we had to make the decision for him.
‘‘He’s trained really well and he’ll have an edge this week.’’
For every Warriors fan, this is going to be a big week for them, having had to wait seven years since the last playoff experience.
The club has been building over the last few seasons to get into the position it is now in and it is reaping the rewards from that.
‘‘There has been a lot of hard work by a lot of people,’’ Kearney reflected.
‘‘When football clubs achieve any sort of success it’s not down to one person, there is so much hard work put in by everyone, with a lot of commitment, sacrifice and courage to be able to do that.
‘‘I’m very pleased that we’ve got ourselves into a position where we’re able to play next weekend and I reckon if you look at the competition, it just goes to show you how delicate it is. How challenging it is to get up for 25 weeks, to be able to put yourself in that position to play in the final.
‘‘Everyone’s done a great job for our members and fans and we’ve got to make sure we use this as a platform.
‘‘If you look at the Cowboys, they’ve played in two grand finals in the last three years and this year they were nearly playing off for the wooden spoon. That’s how quickly it can happen and as quickly as we’ve ascended, the opposite can happen if you take your eye off the ball.
‘‘So I’m wary of that. I’m not looking past this week, but in the back of my head I’m thinking that that’s what we need to look after moving forward.’’