NRL 2003: NZ Warriors

About time that they had a thread to follow their progress through the 2003 season.

Not a good game tonight at the Caketin in Welly. Beaten 18-10 by Canberra But a standout performance by H. Fa'afili and a solid Stacy Jones yet again, Maybe Webb is ready to take over full kicking duties in a Warriors camp that desperately needs someone in that role.

The Warriors are suffering big-time by not having an accurate and consistent goal-kicker. They have to work so much harder to get ahead on the scoreboard. 12-0 would've been psychologically better for the Warriors and worse for the Raiders rather than 8-0. This applies to all their matches.

Still 4th on the NRL table after Friday night matches. Solid start to the season, sometime verging on spectatular. A lot more games to go before a clear group of leader can be picked.

Anyone know why Management decided not to renew Ivan Cleary's contract after 2002?

there were a couple of reasons not to renew his contract...

he's too old and they needed to get someone kicking anyhow
he wanted too much and the warriors couldn't afford him and stayunder salary cap

you'll notice now that ivan isn't even playing - he is assistant coach at sydney city i think, coaching the premier grade (div 2) team... so it looks like he was asking too much and nobody wanted to make the investment in such an old player - especially given his propensity to injury...

as for the warriors 2003, watched every game as usual, even got to go to wellington for one which was great we're having a fair season thus far i'd say, but i think we're sorely missing ali lauiti'iti, he is the best ball playing forward in the world and when he comes back we will be a force to be reckoned with... unfortunately i can't see this whole kicking debacle being sorted out - they're all terrible and i can fart the ball over better than any of them can kick it, its getting to be quite ridiculous

in fact i think the kicking saga will be our downfall this year, and we'll only finish around 5 or 6 on the table, because we simply won't win tough games... sad but true... so next year we need to invest money (or some serious time) into a kicker and get things back to a level playing field

Always hard to judge the season at this point. Last year that played hard all year, this year its more about playing like brisbane, the roosters etc, know they will make the top 8 comfortably and aim to peak for the finals. In about 6 weks or so they need to worry if they are outside the top6, other wise there is nothing to worry about.

the goal kicking is def letting the warriors down. One other point is that Stacey Jones is not running with the ball that much any more, esp like he used to.

Next up the Panthers, who are looking for a club record 7th win in a row. Guttenbeil is out with a shoulder injury (maybe for 6 weeks), and Panthers are without the services of forward Ben Roarty who is off to English Super League. Preston Campbell and Rhys Wesser will surely create an impact on the game so if we can deal to them it should be a lot closer than the 28-14 defeat in round 7.
Overall record stands @ 6 wins each, with the Warriors 2 points adrift on the 2003 points table, back in 6th place.

I fail to see how the warriors couldn't afford Ivan Cleary. He would be winning us matches right now. teams would be aware that they couldn't afford to give out penalties as far as 40 metres plus from the posts.
Getting rid of Cleary is proving to be a disaster. We need to buy in a proficient goal kicker. walker from Manly almost beat us single handedly via goal kicks earlier in the year.

We haven't had too many of the 'easy' teams so far... we just need to aim for the top 4. It's a long season, and we've still got the potential.. i'm glad we haven't peaked yet. The main problem is, there's too much emphasis on Stacey Jones... the opposition just target him exclusively....

The thing with Cleary is that he originally said he was going to retire, so the Warriors did not factor him into their future plans. Once he decided he wanted to carry on playing it was too late and the Warriors could no longer afford him with the salary caps etc taken into consideration.

We needed to hold on to Cleary, surely it wasnt impossible to retain him?

Jones, imo is not quite there this season, I havnt been watching too much league but from what ive seen he's rusty.....

I think they will finish in 6th.

If you have already signed players for the next season and didn't include him in the calculations cos he said he was retiring, then how do you get around the salary cap without breaking contracts?

Jones is always on the back foot, because the fowards havn't had enough go forward!

He never said he was retiring, he was planning on playing over in the UK, that why it was a shock when he signed up as assisant coach of Roosters, the reason he was leaving the Warriors was because we couldn't afford him,

does this remind any one of the Warriors symbol?

Also worth a mention is that Ali (however the hell you spell his last name) is supposedly going to be back into full on training shortly, so hopefully he is not that far away from being back in the team.

Ali Lautiti is on the return and when he does he'll make a considerable impact in an attacking unit that I'm sure will finish in the top four without a doubt

I think we'll finish about 4th, just like the roosters did last year. That is as long as Ali is back for the last third of the matches.

Ali might not come back to his best though... I think we have enough quality players to get us thru anyway... a lot of the forward pack's been out of form.. i think when they start to come into form, we'll start kicking some ass

As long as they dont play in wellington again they will be fine

don't blame wellington for them playing like cake

playing in welly with a crowd cheering for them has to be 10 times easier than traveling over to Aussie for a game

The Warriors may be pushing near the limit of the salary cap, but they still have room to afford new players. Shown in the recent purchase of former junior Kangaroo Danny Sullivan. Spending valuable coin on the already well covered second row/lock position. Although they may not be able to afford the services of veterans such as Cleary, they must be looking out for a younger replacement.

One of the younger guys is a very good kicker, might be tuimavavae.

yeah thats right jah, apparantly they dont want to expose him to much, especially with goal kicking duties....

Plus there's no point having tuimavavae as your kicker,
because he starts from the bench

There is no one good enough in the current Warriors. Next year they'll have to invest in a quality kicker...


Say Andrew Johns?

Starting to get a bit worried now. This is the worst they have been playing for about 2 years.

A dismal performance against Penrith. I picked that the Warriors would halt the Panthers winning run, but they didn't close down the danger men out wide. They seem to do well when confident, hopefully the return of Ali will change their form and they can still make the top eight.

The Warrior's are going down the table pretty quickly



they got dealt to on saturday

Letting go of campion and Cleary was a disaster. The team would be performing a lot better with one of the two guys that were instrumental in getting us to the play offs last year. Experience goes a long way particularly in the big matches. I don't buy into the whole rebuilding bit. MAybe we were too arrogant or at least over confident to think we didn't need at least one of these guys.

He's not due back till the end of July, & it's gonna take more than one player to sort this team out on current form.

I have to say that the warriors had a shocking performance on Sat nite, im pretty disappointed at how they are playing now compared to how they started the season. Its seems as tho they are really missing Cleary's kicking and Campion's leadership from the front

I realise that he is coming back later in the season, so if they continue with their current form they would have to turn things around in the next month to even make the top eight. I do think that 1 player could make all the difference to this team, as Stacey Jones has shown in the past. The Warriors have shown they have the skill to take top teams down this season, so it is more a confidence issue. Who better to increase the confidence than Ali, one of the best blockbusting forwards in the game.

John Carlaw,Lance Hohia, & Tuimvava all dropped for this weekend's game.......

So can the Warriors sort there shit out & record a win this weekend

If they don't they'll drop out of the top 8

Personally I don't think the Warriors can do it but would love to be proved wrong. We can blame the tight arse club that didn't want to spend a gew extra bucks on key players. How can they expect the faithful to keep turning up?

What a dumb comment, they spent up to the salary cap limit, they weren't allowed to spend any more.

They should have cut some other players to make room for Cleary who would be winning them matches. They went for a number of up and comers who would be more valuable to them in the long run over a seasoned professional who is a game winner. Cleary is worth five or six of the young guys.

They were planning for the future. This year may not be their best but in a few years time they will be right up there.

remember a few months ago when everyone was writing the crusaders off? they lost a couple of games in a row, and dropped to 5th on the table...

i'll start getting worried in about a month... we've got a good draw for the next 4 games (one tough game against canberra, but it's at home).. if we can win 3 out of 4, we'll probably be back in the top 4, with the state of O taking a lot out of newcastle and brisbane...

it's only mid season... so long as we finish 4th or higher on the table, we've still got as good a chance as anyone to make the grand final and win it.

I think that there has been much too much empasis on planning for the future. Do that bit by bit instead of trying to get by without two stars from last year.

The most important positions for the wariors to fill are a good stand off with a good kicking game (might as well be an australian) and a good goal kicker. Maybe they could kill two birds with one stone.

We desparately need a good goal kicker with a % above 60% at least.

23-6 Warriors.
Jones was more accurate with his kicking duties last night, bombing to set up tries and grabbing one himself. Debutant Vince Mellars had an excellent first up game along with Meli.

Best thing is they are into 5th place.

good win for the warriors..

BH!
Rob W

Bout time the warriors won, i was disappointed bout their performance in the first half but the second half was wicked.

Good to see stacey jones finally run with the ball, i reckon he needs to do more of that, how bout Meleis kick off the side of the boot that went str8 to the other warriors player that scored a try, what a beauty

Damn, I missed it! Silly females refused to allow us to change the channel and we were forced to watch girly movies!

Isn't that what things like knives, guns and missile launchers were designed for, people who refuse to bow to comon sense.

A good win, but now they have to back it up with a win over Tasman, the Eel's are playing like crud, so the Warriors should win by at least 20



Good to see Jones running a bit more

They have to beat the Eels well (20+) to prove to the public that they can still control teams that are not playing good football. 23 points against the Sharks is the first time in 6 games that they have managed to crack the 20 point mark. This seems to show inefficiencies in overall attack, not just goal kicking.
Any team that has 50 points scored against then in one game would been taken to the cleaners by last years Warriors team.

what a shocker of a game on Sat nite, how did they go from having a 26 - 12 lead to lose 26 - 28.

The Warriors roller coaster continues to go down

blowing a 14 point lead with 9 minutes remaining

CHOKERS

I am glad I missed this game. I tend to just get really pissed off when teams I support squander a lead like that.

and i lost $60 too... rude...

it is apparent however that the warriors have lost a bit of the confidence and spark that got them through last year...

we need ali lauiti'iti back... stacey jones seems to be STARTING to sort out the kicking woes

i read in the paper that we'll be offloading logan swan... good riddence to bad rubbish is all i say!

Do they have any chance against the competition leaders? The way that Canberra have been playing recently it might not even be close. They put up a solid performance against the Broncos last weekend and only just lost.

Well they came from behind in the 1st half to beat the raiders yesterday. I thought it was a top effort.

I still reckon they need to improve on the defense as there was some pretty poor D yesterday.

yeah there was poor D but i think thats a symptom of a raiders team that are playing to their full potential... we certainly weren't the first team to look flimsy against the raiders this year and we won't be the last thats for sure...

but yeah, great performance from the alds - awesome to see toopi back in action, i think we missed the lad out in the centres... just can't wait for lauiti'iti to come back

the warriors haven't been outside the top 8 for 2 years now... good record

Totally agree that Logan Swan should be replaced with someone else next year. Ironic that he performed well in the weekend

Well they created the first ever golden point game last nite against South Sydney and they won with an amazing drop kick by stacey jones.

The game should have been an easy win for the warriors but yet again they show how poor they perform away from home.

wasnt the first golden point game dear

Bad performance but an awesome comeback. At least they showed they have the determination to keep going when a victory looked unlikely. I guess a wins a win in the end and its not near the business end of the season yet.

twas the first golden point by the Warriors......

good win but shit, there was some wiked games on the weekend !

It's just a matter of faith..