Ando performed a minor miracle with us. Him and Mick Watson primarily took the Warriors from near on insolvency to being a highly successful on field club as well as a fairly well disciplined and the most profitable club in the NRL.
However, for some reason Ando changed things this year. There's an old motto, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In some ways I noticed some of these things coming in during the middle of last year actually, it was quite apparent against your club over here where the Eels won;
* A very narrow attack. For some reason he wanted to steer clear of the wide offloads onto deep running centres chests, something that Ali Lauitiiti and Sione Faumuina thrived upon.
* A horrendously compressed defence that never adjusted to read players like Brad Fittler and Darren Lockyer who have the passing game to go around them.
* A poor defensive speed line. The previous year the Warriors in their own 10m zone were one of the best defensively. They built up a strategy of moving a lot quicker than they had in the past off the line which gave the likes of Richard Villasanti all momentum to hit a crushing tackle, or at the very least gain parity in the play the ball area. This year it is horrifically slow, meaning because they are going up very slowly and stopping, they generally find themselves unable to dominate in the tackle as they have no momentum. Basically the offensive player if tackled usually goes to his chest, which allows him a quick ruck. The defenders usually to avoid a penalty (we are the most penalised club this year coincidentally) have to roll to the side. As the penalties show we haven't done that because physically losing our marker defence has killed us.
* A reliance on individualism. It seemed the Warriors fell into the catch of Stacey will fix it. Unfortunately Stacey was not injury free this season and that crushed them. They relied on his brilliance to spark something. Problem was, Stacey lives off three things two of which are phased out by our tactics: A: Set moves, I remember many instances of a deep set backline where Stacey would work with Lance Hohaia or Brent Webb to feed the ball to a deep Ali Lauitiiti, from there he's near impossible to stop in a dominant position because of his excellent footwork. Stacey would then get in a position to play second phase footy, with a staggered defensive line and an arsenal of short passes/kicks, a good self offloading game and a good accelerator Stace was dynamic and won the Golden Boot award. B: That second phase play, he'd wreak havoc going forward against a not set defensive line, Ali Lauitiiti and Sione Faumuina provided this C: His short kicking game which he still possesses. Effectively now he's working off 1/3rd his natural talents, which reflects in his try assists/line break assists tallies this season. The reason I bring up the Parra game last year is because Sione Faumuina practically near on won that game on his own in 10 minute spell in probably the most lethal burst I've personally seen in the flesh by a backrow interchange player.
* Fitness. Ando's idea this year was to bulk up, and bulk up big time. The Warriors lost their natural speed and it cost them dearly.
All of a sudden we had the illusion that guys like Clinton Toopi, Ali Lauitiiti and Francis Meli for example, raw natural talents had suddenly lost all that ability. All three struggled horrendously with their stamina at the beginning of the season, Toopi's weight had caused him to lose so much speed at times he was back being interchanged as a backrow forward. The players apparently lost all faith in all the changes, for instance against St-George in round 2? where the Warriors were expected to not be troubled against a weakened Saints line up, apparently at half time he said the players looked like they were not mentally there and weren't actually taking in what he was saying to him. Problem was, all these new found Australian/Great Britain style structures he suddenly implemented were foreign to them. They wanted to play their own style which they had learnt how to make successful, but for some reason Daniel prohibited this this season which led to his ultimate demise.
I know Daniel was practically lined up signed sealed and delivered to be the Southern Orcas coach, but obviously that has fell through. It wouldn't surprise me to see him back at Parramatta. On the Josh Davis thing though, wasn't he signed either earlier this year while Daniel was coaching the Warriors or last year again while he was coaching the Warriors? Mere coincidence.
One thing Daniel should feel enormously proud of, and New Zealand should be eternally grateful for was his work with Cullen Sports to put programs and structures in place for the juniors of New Zealand (The Warriors have a 30,000 junior pool, the biggest Sydney base I believe is Penrith with 6,000) to come through. Players like Iafeta Paleaaesina, Jerome Ropati, Tevita Latu, Louis and Vinnie Anderson, Manu Vatuvei, Cooper Vuna have all been products of the initial phase. Obviously it is going to take a bit of time but I'm of the firm belief the foundations and junior competitions he put in place will one day pay off big time for the Warriors and the Kiwis.
Good luck to Ando wherever he goes, if he's learnt from the structural changes he brought in this season he's one of the smartest coaches out in terms of creating programs to enable youngsters to achieve excellence.
