Yeah, I guess not. Hope RTS pulls up okay. Ali also looked like he'd hurt his ankle again in the first half.
The frustrating thing is, apart from a couple notable games, we've been in the fight each week and could easily be several wins better off. Do we have a mental fitness coach? If not, maybe time to get one. If so, maybe time to get a new one
Mate I agree about being several chances away from being a top team this season.
But I say no need for a psychologist. Our horrific injury toll is something fans need to get a grip with.
Without the games where we ended up with one fit player on the bench we would have won many of those games.
Injury is the problem, a couch Doctor is not going to fix that. But perhaps the Warriors band wagon needs a shrink.
Too me it is really black and white obvious why we are not the team of last season. We are getting flogged in the hospital ward...and if you throw in a tosser from Manly who wants out and is throwing his toys that is a recipe for a cluster truck.
Without derailing the thread, the truth is the Officials have been riding us on top of all our injury woes, fact our club gets obscene calls, how else would all the head shots and punches to the head not be adjudicated in our games, how else apart from bias could a player be binned for being head butted, smacked in the head twice, put on report for....well i dunno what he was put on report for neither did the Judiciary which is why they swept that case under the carpet.
Late head contact in a even score game (TMM), head injury to a Warrior, Ref says all good, Bunker says nothing to see here, Referees boss bans the player on the spot.
There are lots of cool kids that love to say they are not gonna use excuses around here. Yeah ok, be ostriches, those cases of blatant horror NRL rulings are factual not my opinion, not hyperbole from me. Facts.
Laban got punished for being assaulted.
TMM got no support from the Refs or Bunker for an incident that saw the Referees boss ban the player. Did any one ask themselves why this was not the rant of the season on Aussie Networks like it would be for any other club? Short answer because it was the Warriors play maker, a Sydney club would have given NRL 360 material for an episode.
Last season the tipping point in our favor was when multi million dollar sponsor one NZ called out the cheating.
This season the cheating is worse on top of a much worse injury run.
Does my head in Warriors fans expect wins in any given game in this comp with those handicaps.
So yeah when we lose by two points like this week I am celebrating because I see the hill we have to climb and am brutally frank about the realities of being the foreigners in this comp.
For mine the test this season of whether it is fair or not, is the number of Warriors who went off with HIAs while the Reff said no foul, there have been bloody dozens and I am disgusted with it. Because somehow we have become the only club the HIA does not apply to, meanwhile Warriors fans find excuses for the Kangaroos. Onya, Aussie Jesus will have a place for you in Aussie heaven.
Rant not over....lol
What really gets on my tits is that this is not even a subtle bias, this is not some isolated happening game by game.
When the Warriors played the Rabbits, Mitchel their Indigenous poster boy (I am indigenous, so no race critics thanks) Mitchell throws a bunch of elbows straight to Shaun Johnsons head.
Shaun Johnson is not some pleb you ignore for being head shotted by a Fox sport indigenous circle Jerk star right?? Shaun Johnson is an NRL super Star in any language and the greatest player out of an entire country. But his head hits get soft treatment.
So Mitchell the Aussie Indigenous flog goes on to Tip Tangata Whenua Captain Tohu Harris in a pole axe tackle, and then adds Muay Thai knee to the head.
Fat flog is allowed to stay on field despite his attempts to head injure two NZ legends and paralyse one of them.
WTF???
Man do not insult my intelligence with saying this comp is fair and that the Warriors are not treated differently. Our players are not bloody protected from head injury the most serious category of harm in this sport.
Our players are not respected as employees by this company our players are not respected as human beings, as fathers, husbands, partners, sons. Time and again the health and safety laws of this competition do not apply to the brain health of our players.
It is appalling. Someone from the NZ Media needs to pick up this thread and investigate and make a case of the multiple cases where our treatment in head shots is different to the other sixteen teams. One NZ CEO attacked the NRL after an HIA incident, about time they mounted another challenge to these clowns.
What pisses me off most about the TMM head clash is that he is a player who has brain bleeds, if anyone deserves to be a protected species in the NRL it is him, as someone who was told to never play again by a Neuro Surgeon his situation demands a duty of care from this money making cynical biased monster they call the NRL.
Anyone litigious here feel free to forward my rant to sports journos in NZ. The reason I say that is the video evidence of our poor treatment is so proliferate seasons 2023-2024 they would have a story that would sell clicks.
A NZ League Journo needs to investigate the Warriors HIA send offs by the independent doctor versus the no on field call by the Aussie officials, that is a very powerful weapon in exposing bias, you can very easily measure that against HIAs across the comp where the Ref interceded to protect the other club players and expose the bias which currently shows the Refs do not protect out players from head injury.
Someone needs to ask why Doctors are sending our players off when the Ref says no problem as compared to all the other teams. The video evidence alone of being hit in the head is enough to create a sports story that would earn a Journo an award.
I never seen a player sent off for being punched outside of the Warriors.
In my time as a fan I have seen two Warriors sent for being punched in the head. The first time the Warriors threatened to sue the NRL which saw better Reffing.
This latest case where there was a head butt then two punches, needs to to flagged to NZ media.