Warriors must move on – Beale

Mat.kermeen@stuff.co.nz

As cold as it sounds, Gerard Beale believes the time has come for the Warriors to forget about Stephen Kearney.

The Warriors centre doesn’t like thinking about it in that brutal way and is quick to point out he has the utmost respect for Kearney, but he also knows with a two and four record, the team can’t afford to let his shock exit be a long lingering distraction.

Beale, who concedes it has been ‘‘an emotional few days’’, believes every player in the squad has huge amounts of respect for Kearney’s contribution since joining the club for the 2017 preseason.

But with Friday’s demanding challenge against the Melbourne Storm looming and the Warriors already in danger of losing touch with the top eight, Beale says the team need to stick together and front up to yet another challenge of adversity.

As sad as they are to lose Kearney as their coach, as professionals, the Warriors need to reset and refocus to enable them to front up on Friday night under interim coach Todd Payten, Beale says.

The Warriors have completed their first field session under Payten and just as importantly without Kearney’s voice barking orders.

‘‘It was obviously strange, that’s for sure,’’ Beale said.

But following a few days reflection, getting back to training brought some normality to the situation.

‘‘Without sounding cold, we needed to still move forward,’’ Beale said.

Moving on is easier said than done but Beale believes the squad are slowly regrouping.

‘‘We all recognise that we also need to refocus, we have a game in a few days against Melbourne who are always tough.’’

It has been a challenge to keep morale up following Kearney’s axing on Saturday, a bolt from the blue that deeply hit every squad member hard in some way and left players’ heads ‘‘all over the place’’, Beale says.

‘‘Some were probably angry, some were confused, some were

just unsure, but with all that, we knew though speaking about it and understanding that we have each other here. We’re in this together.’’

With deaths, illness and job losses being regular headlines in a world still gripped by the global Covid-19 pandemic, Beale says the Warriors group have no shortage of perspective to the challenges they are facing as a rugby league team.

‘‘It is tough but at the same time, we do speak about that we are grateful that we get to play league at a time like this when there’s been a lot of people that have had to suffer a lot worse.’’