Former Warriors coach Tony Iro has won the hotly contested battle to become the club's new recruitment and development manager.
Iro, who was an assistant coach to Andrew McFadden this year, will step out of the tracksuit and into an office to take on a pivotal role in deciding which players the Warriors want to sign, keep, or dump.
Since Dean Bell was pushed out of his role as general manager of football operations in April with 18 months left on his contract, his job has been split among three people.
Warriors managing director Jim Doyle has overseen recruitment, Dan Floyd, the football operations manager, was involved in re-signing players and Duane Mann was responsible for developing youngsters.
Iro will now oversee those tasks and play a key role in the future direction of the club. However, the Warriors insist that this is a new position rather than a replacement for Bell.
According to the job description when it was advertised, under the direction and guidance of Doyle and McFadden, Iro will be expected to design and execute a leading edge talent Identification, recruitment and development programme, to meet the football department's current and future talent requirements across all squads, and across all roles.
It's understood a long list of people applied for the vacancy, including former NRL coaches and people who already had links with the Warriors, but Iro's experience and knowledge of the NRL and rugby league throughout New Zealand won out.
Prior to returning to the Warriors this year, Iro worked for the New Zealand Rugby League as their general manager of high performance, and was also the manager of the Kiwis team.
Iro, who played 25 tests for the Kiwis and made 184 NRL appearances across five different clubs, was the Warriors' first under 20s coach in 2008-2009 before becoming assistant coach of the first grade side from from 2010-2012.
He stepped in as acting head coach when Brian McLennan was sacked in 2012 and was a favourite for the head coaching role later given to Matt Elliott. He moved to the NZRL after Elliott's appointment.
The Warriors will be looking to appoint a new assistant coach next year to replace Iro, while the other assistant, Andrew Webster, is already under contract for 2016.
Meanwhile, although the Warriors players have all completed their end season reviews with Doyle and McFadden, they weren't able to go straight into holiday mode.
All players were given thorough medical tests, measuring fitness, body fat and strength.
The results of these tests will be used as a benchmark to judge what condition the players are in when they return for pre-season training in November.
Doyle and McFadden have made it clear they don't want any repeats of players returning from holiday overweight or out of shape and if anyone does they will be severely disciplined.
Management is concerned there still haven't been enough improvements in the club's culture and Doyle has decided to take a hardline approach on anyone who steps out of line or doesn't measure up to the expected standards.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/league...iro-lands-new-recruitment-job-at-the-nrl-club
