Always found it weird that the team that has been the most successful in the under 20s has also been one of the worst at getting young players to be established first graders.
Maybe over the time they've focused too much in making their youngsters to be great u20's players instead of focusing on them being good first graders
I can break it down for you based on my opinion of what the big issues are. Some involves limitations of the environment and others are completely at the feet of the Warriors.
First thing is to break the myth that the Warriors have a whole country to themselves in regards to talent. That's like saying the QLD/NSW Union sides should dominate because they have a whole state (which is size/population comparative to NZ). In reality we know that the best players end up playing league more often than not because that's what they dream of and aspire to. The reverse is true for the Warriors because we know how much Union dominates the minds of most Kiwis when it comes to sport.
The second limitation is that in Australia there's SG ball/Jersey flegg etc which give players a higher standard of competition and better standard of coaching at a very young age. Over in Warrior land the coaching and standard of competition is just not there for these guys so they start behind. Added to that the way Union tries to restrict players from playing league and it's a fight just to keep players, let alone develop them properly. Too often it seems like Warrior players feel like they've made it just by reaching first grade with no real hunger to go further.
What this does is create a third limitation where in the past we've gone after junior union players (Hurrell, Kata, Laumape, Vete etc) and while they're physical specimens and have obvious physical talents, we're not getting to them until they're far along in their development. When we were dominating NYC we were doing that based on guys just being bigger and running over the opposition. This does nothing to prepare players for NRL, which is problem one of the Warriors poor development in the past.
The net result there is that you win NYC trophies, but players don't actually start learning to play rugby league until they're already in first grade. That's never going to work out well and is a big part of the reason why so many of our players are rocks and diamonds.
Problem 2 with the Warriors is their piss poor talent identification in the past. They almost exclusively grab players from South Auckland. While teams like the Storm/Panthers/Dogs etc are scouting the country looking for the next NAS or JFH. The Warriors just mosey on down to South Auckland, wait to be wowed by a physical specimen and pat themselves on the back because somehow this one will be different.
This further kills the "whole country to themselves" argument because the Warriors have often been too lazy to utilise the entire country.
In recent years we have improved our pathways, putting our best talent in NSW Cup and using NYC to blood 17 year olds rather than trying to win it. With NYC leaving I know the Warriors are attempting to get entry into SG Ball/Jersey Flegg etc, but no idea how close that is to becoming a reality.
Long story short, Kearney might not be the solution here, but like most Warriors coaches he's being handed a nice looking product that has serious fundamental design flaws and then is expected to go out and sell them. Half the reason the Warriors probably can't get a decent coach is that the decent coaches are smart enough to say "Yeah, nah, f**k that."
