Player Sam Healey

[Tokyo Warrior]

I thought it might be tempting fate to debut him against a team looking for a hooker for next year

 

[run_it_str8_again]

That jersey presentation gave me hope that he will stick with us

He used the word debt. So he feels indebted to Cappy, Webby, etc. Looks like Ford when he said "I just needed someone to believe in me". Healey said he hadn't had too many people believe in him so keeping that in mind he's just debuted and is named for another go. I like it

 

[Get them onside ref!]

While it likely is the end of Lussick as a hooker back up (we agree on that) let me expound on what Cappy is up too til people get sick of reading it.

Our mass import of Australian spine players (halves and hookers not Fullbacks) is a design to change the style of play of our NSW cup sides.

You read that right, I am inverting the equation where every Warriors fans assumes an Aussie import is only recruited for a first grade pathway.

We are creating a NSW cup team that allows our mostly Poly future star fowards to play off an Australian Hooker and half.

Why?

Because the true worth, the accurate assessment of said poly forward in the past was restricted by them playing in a Weak NZ NSW cup squad.

The type of squad where someone like Taukeiaho would look average and get shipped to the Roosters.

The kind of squad where the next Leka would get sick of playing in a weak NSW cup Warriors side, get sick of not winning GF, and get sick of not getting good ball to rack up Try's and protect their future earnings.

Ergo Cappy imports a ridiculous amount of Aussie halves, too many to even contemplate them being hired as future NRL options.

And the same is going to be true of hookers by the looks, we are going to flood the zone and therefore find out how good these Kiwi kids are playing in an Aussie matrix.

Which has other benefits, if you have ten million Aussie Jnr halves, the Warriors becomes a well known and popular tourist destination for Australian youngsters looking for a holiday in another country.

Of that sample size a percentage will love it here, a percentage will eventually prove to be kids that want to keep crossing the ditch during footy season because they love the NZ life style.

The bigger picture that Webster and McFadden are clearly shaping their vision around is making the Warriors a 'normal' destination for Australians.

They are basically normalizing the Warriors geographical distance by bringing in as many Australians as they can to create a new NRL culture about the "New Zealand experience'. And the easiest way to do that is to bring in Aussie youth....therefore Cappy is subverting the cap restrictions and other bias that experienced Aussies have against the Warriors.

We have the most beautiful country in the world. We have been expert at promoting and selling this country....except for the Warriors who have tarnished it by their years of underperformance and years of being Isolationist with their pre Webster Mcfadden era local (almost) quota of Australians mentality.

The thing that I admire most about McFadden who I think is the most influential person in Warriors history (don't get me started on how he was the first to create shapes in our attack and offensive defence) the thing I admire most about him is that he has thrown the rule book out, hired hundreds of Aussie halves, hunts Aussie junior hookers...because he understands he is finally joining the Warriors to the rest of the NRL in such a way that the Warriors staff recruitment no longer has any road blocks to getting any type of Australian they want, any time they want them.

Let me put it simply.

The more Australian kids that come here and have a wonderful time before deciding to play in Australia, the more the NRL gets to hear about how going to the Warriors is a life changing opportunity for Australians wanting to explore the world.

Big picture....the three hour flight which is less than a long drive to the beach for most Australians is no longer foreign, no longer a sacrifice....just another club with more to offer locally than they will find in Australia for the Aussie with an adventurous spirit.

Always say
Find our junior players here
Lots Penrith juniors formed their powerhouse
Are we saying we ain’t got those players positions here right now

 

[sup42]

Always say
Find our junior players here
Lots Penrith juniors formed their powerhouse
Are we saying we ain’t got those players positions here right now

McFadden knows this system very well. He has been here for years between his various roles.

He knows the ole party line at the Warriors, home of the sleeping giant in the NRL...best nursery in the comp yadda yadda.

He is a former half himself (in the same vein of this thread he looks like he is taking the same view of hooking positions at the Warriors).

Clearly he has identified that using halves that need a year or two to catch up to their Aussie highschool trained counter parts is what is holding back the other positions in a football team.

Simply if you have crap halves, they make every one else look crap.

It is nice to have this dream of developing the next whatever.....but lets be real, it hasn't worked, and it now looks as though someone has figured out that it is a dead end.

We are forming a powerhouse like Penrith, but the truth is, you cannot take kids that have not had weekly school games and school practice, under semi pro school systems in a league hothouse and expect them to grow into junior halfbacks that can kick a field kick, that can distribute the ball in a set pattern and most of all you cannot make them the articulate/loquacious chatty little Aussie kid that yells and directs unless the kid has it in them....or is being bred for it in the school years.

That is not to say that the kiwi kids cannot get a pathway to halfback at the Warriors - they just have to be at the same standard as all these imported players we have flooded our system with at the fundamental level that is organizing a Rugby league team.

 

[The Warrior Waka]

View: https://youtu.be/4rnBem_RWII?si=Zst9ayh8a0Ru6WOe