Not sure how long Lowe has been involved with the ARL bid. He seemed to come into the frame quite late. Like others his involvement is concerning. He has had some more roles since then like being the CEO at Manly for a while, still I'd rather have our current CEO. As far as the football department is concerned he is well out of touch.
Like others the lines in the article about Cameron George and Brian Smith are concerning. We are finally turning things around and these two although behind the scenes would be a big part in that turn around.
It would be good to get more details on the ARL CPHT's plans. Are they going to use the Warriors to prop up the local comp? Sure a strong local competition is good for the club but an NRL club is expensive and profits from the club should be reinvested in the club.
How are they going to make the local game stronger? They be doing that anyway so why is the Warriors so important to that plan?
The main thing with any owner is how much are they willing to invest in the club.
It took Glenn coming on board to get some improvements around the club like the gym that was lacking. To give you an indication of how bad the old equipment was I had a trainer tell me he was offered all of the old equipment for free and he still didn't want it.
They want to decrease the amount of youngsters moving across to Australia. Their plans on this will be interesting, stopping the Jersey Flegg etc would mean at the moment those players would look to move across. Strong age group and a semi professional competition in Auckland would be fantastic and would help the club. But how many years would we be from getting to that point?
You make some very valid points. Ones that I have been struggling to understand myself. Initially the ARL say that numbers in the local game are diminishing. They say Warriors results are a key driver of that, though how that makes apparently up to 800. players move to Australia and England I am unsure of. They say they are buying the Warriors and will use them to help fund a semi professional league in Auckland to help address this. Now this just doesn't add up to me. League, rugby union and cricket have all been declining in numbers over recent times. I don't think the Warriors are to blame for all of that. In fact, there are a few factors that are contributing to it. A change in the mix of immigrants coming here, a societal change, an increase in other sports. So, I don't see how a semi professional league addresses that. I also don't understand why the ARL haven't implemented this before now if this is indeed the answer. They could have but chose not to. Instead, increasing their debt to buy a club which I can only summise they plan to use cashflow from to prop up their organisation and this throwback to the past semi pro league idea.
It doesn't bode well for the actual Warriors club itself, particularly if they are going to cut the newly entered junior teams in the Australian competitions.
