General Why has this team fallen off a cliff?

[ArtySubs]

Too many useless players that shouldn't be playing NRL:
Bunty
Pene
Pompey
Sironen
Katoa
Berry
Chanel Harris-Tavita

100% agree with every name there, but that’s all we can attract, even the good Kiwi players don’t want to come here.
The travel is probably our biggest hurdle.
Basing ourselves in Oz with home games here may help but still reckon as the only team outside Oz it maybe too much of a hurdle to attract top players in their prime, that’s why we’re left with OAP’a after a cheque of the average/below average other teams don’t want.

 

[AusWarriorsFan]

100% agree with every name there, but that’s all we can attract

Well part of that is because we are trying to compete in an overseas competition whilst based in NZ.

However we had the chance to be Aus based and place the team close to the largest NZ RL fan demographic in Aus, not 130km away at a club that was wanting to enter the NRL themselves. That would have given us, real home games. Who made that decision? Im sceptical if our Board are the ones actually making the Yes/No decisions.

The other huge issue we have is our clubs administration. As I wrote in the Roger Tuivasa-Sheck thread, the Warriors have tried to compete with NSW clubs that are a century old by throwing Coaches at the problem thinking that will solve the problem.

I really do not understand our clubs organisational chart, or how it appears to be as there is no said chart. Also, a company invests in the club, that shouldnt mean an individual from that investment should be able to be a hands on person in the club, right down to player interaction and hiring and firing coaches and players. The Club needs far more structure and expertise. Players should answer to coach only, Coach should only answer to the CEO and the CEO should be answerable to the board. The person from Autex should only sit on the board as a representative of their investment.

We do not have a clear executive team at the club, we should have a General Manager, Recruitment Manager, CIO, Chief Marketing, etc. Heck Melbourne have a General Manager for many functions. Right now it feels like we have 2 people trying to run the whole club and bypass any resemblance of structure.

We need to find our identity again. And the only way to do that is through a strong Club Administration.

We certainly can't throw a Coach in and think that is going to turn our fortunes around. If anything SK provided structure and changed the professionalism expectations that we need from a coach and that was reflected in our team slowly improving in the small but important things like fitness, completions, red zone defense.

But on the eve of what looked possibly like a top 6 year, the CEO ham strung the club by releasing all our reserve halves as well as CNK and then pushed our star half out by arguing on twitter about not being worth his Salary, that the club has offered him.

That should have been a warning of how things were and were going to be run at the club for the last 4 years.

I do not see anything changing until we fix the Club first, then worry about Players and Coach. But given how far we have moved from being a typical NRL club, I do not see changes happening under current Management and Ownership.

I can see why Brownie felt burnt out.

 

[Since95]

Hiku will probably get selected for the kiwis this year and cowboys fans have raved about his signing aswell he was a big loss

He gets picked even if he was at the warriors as we have only a few centres in the teams actually playing first grade.

However this is likely to be last contract and we had 1 year of him out and half a season before that.

Given we thought we had depth at centre I understand the decision to let him go.
But he wasnt plaging anywhere near his capabilities while with us.

We also offered him a contract he turned it down for a longer on at the Cows

 

[Mr Dragon]

Too many useless players that shouldn't be playing NRL:
Bunty
Pene
Pompey
Sironen
Katoa
Berry
Chanel Harris-Tavita

The sad thing is i cant even defend any of these players, a very average bunch. Bunty would be the best of that list.

 

[AusWarriorsFan]

I think Chanel Harris-Tavita is noticably trying to take on the line, but the reality is he is a really good #7, just doesnt have the drift or "magic" to cut through the line, he is also having to do this without first having the defense stretched to other side. I dont see Metcalf or Walsh doing any better if we do not learn how to stretch the defense, what is the point of forwards taking a settler on tackle 4 inside the red zone? It does nothing for us. We should try shifting it side to side with set plays called on the fly, but we are not at the level of Pennies, so that probably unrealistic. Barrett is probably good at Offense coaching as he was a 5/8th.

Going back to the club and organisation, how many positions are we missing? Im wondering if there are any that should be there for the players that may not be outside how the club is administered.......

Id would be awesome if there was a way for the club to be floated. Lets say there is 100k Warriors supporters (surely?), we could do shares at $200 each to buy the club back into the hands of the 30 year (and newer) supporters/fans. Then hire a "FUNCTIONAL" board, one that actually makes the decisions. On that board I would ask somebody like Gould or somebody who has been involved in Club administration for a long time to be a member of the Board of Directors, from there take advice from that expert, on what our Club needs to operate correctly.

I think Mo has good intentions, but the way CG and Mo have behaved is highly irregular and I do not see how that can bring success. You dont know what you dont know, its not like either have been involved in administration of clubs prior. Mo really should only be sitting on the board as well like I said in last post.

We need some alignment with NZRL, we really need their buy in, as Ive said before, we should copy other Clubs like Newcastle, change the NZRL men's domestic comp to the Warriors Cup, from there pick the best and brightest for our club to compete in the NSW Cup.

At junior levels we should have Warriors Camps for our best and brightest U16, who then have a pathway to play for NZ's own team in the NRL. Get our U20 system packed with players who have had a similar level of expectation put on them that the Aus youth do.

So by the time we have shining players in he U20 system, we do not need to spend 4 years getting them up to NRL FG standard like SK successfully did but had no appreciation by most just how train wrecked the club really is.

But how can we implement change when the club is owned by Autex and Carlaw Heritage Trust. And an owner of one of those organisations is stepping outside of investment and having a voice on the board, to taking full control from top to bottom. I applaud the intentions of it, but we will never succeed without experts being in expert roles. I do not know how we get Mo to take a step back and hire the right people to give the Board the right advice.

Who is the Chairman of the Carlaw Heritage Trust?

 

[Since95]

Unbelievably its fallen off a cliff due to the mental state of the players. At this stage they cant stop the rot they head to a dark place and end up in such a dark. Place they compound it.

Basically they arent playing footy, they are trying not to loose.

Its the old addage of how does a skier stay alive?? The dont look for trees and try to dodge them, all they see ends up being trees.

They focus on the path where's the opening, what path to take.

We so stuck on not losing that the only thing we see is a loss.

Im sure majority of players are trying its reflected in their stats. But the errors we give up are so low level at such crucial times it compounds the issue.

 

[AusWarriorsFan]

As Vossy said in commentary, something like this paraphrase "its amazing how the Warriors can go from lookin like a top 4 side to bottom of the table in quicj time".

We simply need players in our centres and on our wings that are capable of defending mistakes, which lead to needing defense on our goal line.

We are not far off it, we really arn't. But we seem hell bent on players who are poor in defense, if we going to stick with them, we need a coach who can give them tools to manage their composure and structure who we are never left flanked. But we should have NZ players of much higher capability through a better NZRL aligned pathway.

We made 6 mistakes total, 4 of them cost us the game, we should be able to defend 4/6 mistakes.

But not playing Arthars in favour of Valiea/Berry, is as simply insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

Converting Aitken to back rower was also very stupid. But he could still play centre.

We let Hynes simply run sideways all game until he eventually found holes, we had guys easily wthin tackling distance. It felt like a bunch of shirt grabbers to afraid to commit to taking his legs out.

Fix the defense and our fortunes turn 180 deg imo. We have a lot of points in us. We are scoring 3-4 tries a game with ZERO strategy or set plays (most of the time), simply of share raw offense talent.

But long term that doesnt fix the club and how its admnistered and how we get pathways. Somewhat Brownie was looking at that for us. ie Papali'i should have had the expectations that the Eels put on him which tuned him into a monster Prop before Warriors u20.

We also need to include poaching Union, Touch and 7s players of exceptional talent into a new and demanding pathway. So that all NZ players only see the Warriors as the club every Kiwi wants to play for and have to fight to get to.

That is how we fix the immediate but also what we should be doing about the long term.

 

[ramps]

Everyone in the club talking about our culture.

i think the club dont understand that culture is not just an ethnic thing. Not just celebrating where you’re from. Its more the identity that we have on the field. 2002 was “Warrior ball” exciting and tough. same with 2011.

i feel like now we‘re just not confident in what we do. Players just dont fit. We need to go back to ”Warrior ball”. Bruising defence, offloads and talented outside backs sprinkled with strong aussie leaders.

Get back our identity and build our team around our “style”. No more of this 1 man hit up and no one around to be seen. Too busy setting up the next play to just try and get to an average bomb at the end of the set. Never always had the fittest players but you start playing exciting footy it becomes fun again. Players need to start enjoying their footy and gain some sort of confidence. No one looks keen anymore.

 

[bruce]

What the hell happened to our team?

Keeping to simple things, last week our stats were competitive except for set distance. I recall they dicked us by over 10 metres a set.

That is not normal for this team.

If that is the only issue, it is not harakiri time just yet.

 

[bruce]

Vossy

Who does he work for? Just asking like.

Fox are the most despised media outlet in the English speaking world. Seriously.

 

[AusWarriorsFan]

Fox are the most despised media outlet in the English speaking world. Seriously.

Oh Im not disagreeing, Im just using that as one example of somebody in the media pointing out what is so bloody obvious, that we are doing nothing about.

If you can be top 4 looking on offense, yet you have the worst defense in the league, of course that will happen.

The answer is simply do whatever it takes to control the flow of points caused by those areas of weakness, which includes hiring new OB's and using the ones we have for now, ie Aitken and Arthars. But lets be honest, as much as I like Dallin Watene-Zelezniak on the wing and Montoya tries hard to get the metres, it is not just the centres at fault, these wings also create a lot of problems. We try to get guys like Curran out wide, but you cant avoid it, the Sharks simply go side to side to find one of the OBs stretched and we get done easily. So whilst centres will help, if we sticking with both Wings, they need some serious help on defense training, but so does the whole team, so when they sweep back the other way, we dont have Montoya 1 vs 2 etc. Walsh's defensive vision has improved, but his one on one tackling is still terrible.

The good news is, this is just strategy, implemented in training and repeated over and over. HC with excellent defensive coaching (aka teaching) and imo an offense consultant like Barret or Slater to really get this raw talent scoring twice the 3-4 tries that we get without anything fancy.

But long term, the Club is the problem, and the main problem is alignment, retainment and progression. Who the flap in the staff list is looking after each of those.

 

[Dixpat]

Who does he work for? Just asking like.

Fox are the most despised media outlet in the English speaking world. Seriously.

Does it matter who he works for?

Also have you got a link to support your second statement?

 

[Teeps4Shore]

Guys, what about governance - where is the board? Aren’t we supposed to have one? The board should be putting together the overarching strategy for the club - covering all aspects. How often does this board meet? What do they discuss?

An ineffective board leads to an ineffective CEO being appointed. Bad strategy trickles down to the people at the coal face - in this case our first grade team and our pathways.

On field performance will only improve once this club gets its off field house in order.

We need a professional board put in place to sort out this mess, not run a one man dictatorship that Mowhawk seems to have in place… in fact, the board should be working with the CEO to formulate the process to appoint the next first grade coach and coaching structure.

Just another thought not yet covered off. We really are Mickey Mouse.

 

[gpred]

For me it's simple.

To win a premiership you need players who want to die FOR the jersey, even if just for one year.

We have players who come to die IN our jersey (Issac, Adam, Shaun....you know who you are).

 

[bruce]

Does it matter who he works for?

Also have you got a link to support your second statement?

Do you live in a cave?

 

[AusWarriorsFan]

Guys, what about governance - where is the board? Aren’t we supposed to have one? The board should be putting together the overarching strategy for the club - covering all aspects. How often does this board meet? What do they discuss?

An ineffective board leads to an ineffective CEO being appointed. Bad strategy trickles down to the people at the coal face - in this case our first grade team and our pathways.

Somebody is listening to me now haha. Precisely. The representative from Austex should only be sitting on the board. Carlaw Heritage Trust as well. What they need is to hire somebody with deft NRL club experience to come in and assess what we need, which is common practise. From there we setup professionals who work in recruitment, general manager, a LEAGUE CEO. Then they need to look at a Warriors CUP to replace the NZRL domestic comp, the best of those at each grade represent us in the NSW cup. That is the only way for us to get the same level of coaching and expectations as Aus players. By u20 we have players who are ready to take a step into FG at the level Papali'i has become at the Eels. No more of this trying to coach players who just dont have the urgency, drive, reason etc into NRL FG level, like our Centres this year which is one of the main reasons we are losing games.

The board is there, but the board should be taking advice and making decisions as a board, not one individual deciding they will be hands on involved and then from player interaction all the way up to hiring coaches. I dont see that as setting up a club. I dont see that working for us long term, despite best intentions.

I do not understand why people do not focus on this rather than talking about players and reasons etc, that is superficial imo. Obviously defense is what we need, so hire a damn good hard man defense HC and an offense specialist AC or Consultant depending on how much they want to commit, ie Woolf and Barrett or Green and Billy Slater.

But lets talking about why the CLUB is not functioning, we need to get away from talking about the problems with the current team and our coaching.

WTF is up with our club ?

 

[Dixpat]

Do you live in a cave?

Were the questions too hard for you bruce

 

[The Falcon]

I wonder if the bright lights of the big city and all it offers has crept into affecting performance ?

 

[the borg]

Swiss cheese affect if you ask me.... all the decades old problems that the clubs either ignored or swept under the carpet.. plus the new ones, like Covid protocols, recent coaching changes etc.. have all lined up to form 1 big hole..
IMO theres probably too many factors to itemise, now the difficult part is how to fix it? and where do you start? ..
I guess the starting point comes next week when they return home. What happens after that could be anyones guess..

 

[Once A Warrior]

Everyone in the club talking about our culture.

i think the club dont understand that culture is not just an ethnic thing. Not just celebrating where you’re from. Its more the identity that we have on the field. 2002 was “Warrior ball” exciting and tough. same with 2011.

i feel like now we‘re just not confident in what we do. Players just dont fit. We need to go back to ”Warrior ball”. Bruising defence, offloads and talented outside backs sprinkled with strong aussie leaders.

Get back our identity and build our team around our “style”. No more of this 1 man hit up and no one around to be seen. Too busy setting up the next play to just try and get to an average bomb at the end of the set. Never always had the fittest players but you start playing exciting footy it becomes fun again. Players need to start enjoying their footy and gain some sort of confidence. No one looks keen anymore.

That sounds like hard work ramps! Not sure if that fits the culture.