F.O Andrew Webster

[Penrose Warrior]

Thinking today, the two big stories of our season :

1- bad luck with injuries
2- Webster just not being as good as we thought he was.

and tbh, that isn’t his fault. We got carried away.

He still is a good coach and we are fortunate to have him, especially given our record with coaches.

100% agree with this.

In terms of the game plan, I can't necessarily fault him for that. It worked last year, but other teams wised up to it. Maybe he was too slow to adapt? In hindsight (and I will 100% admit I got this wrong, too) playing SJ with injury was an issue. We probably lost a couple of games we could have won with SJ on one leg - it is crazy to listen to his Play On podcast and hear he couldn't walk down the stairs properly with this Achilles, and as we know didn't train. That's not a guy you should be picking, really.

I think AFB affected the side at times, more than we'll probably ever appreciate. I think some of us saw that coming, and maybe he's been OK at times, but I've got to believe he's been divisive at times - obviously the main part when he refused to join the team in the song.

100% he is still a good coach, it's a boring old message but the greats - Bennett, Gibson, Cleary, to a lesser extend Bellamy - took a long time to win their first. I'm not saying Webster is them, but I'm sure given the quality of Webby, he'll tell you this has been a massive learning experience in his second year that will bode well going forward.

And yeah, the injuries have been shocking, really. I don't follow 17 clubs' medical list but I imagine ours would be the worst, in terms of games missed/status of those guys who have missed.

 

[Wheeled Warrior]

Thinking today, the two big stories of our season :

1- bad luck with injuries
2- Webster just not being as good as we thought he was.

and tbh, that isn’t his fault. We got carried away.

He still is a good coach and we are fortunate to have him, especially given our record with coaches.

Injuries and never having our strongest squad for the majority of season is definitely the reason why we are 14th. Webster is good but got tested with trusting his experience but broken players over the up-and-coming talented rookies. It's a lesson he will take onboard because he now realises the SJ experiment went south.

 

[Meth]

Injuries and never having our strongest squad for the majority of season is definitely the reason why we are 14th.

It's a reason. Not the reason.

We have often had the team to win and haven't. The Dragons, the Titans (twice), the Knights- we just turned up looking like shit. We did that against strong teams too (Roosters spring to mind), but that's more forgivable.

Injuries have been significant. Preparation seems to be more so and that's on Webster IMO

 

[Rich102]

I find one of the most baffling things is allowing Katoa and Curran to leave.
Maybe they were offered more (Katoa) or had a clash with the coach (Curran).
Either way we lost two really good players and good coaches don't lose players they want to/need to keep.
Curran is being used far better at the dogs than he was here.
No doubt there was a reason to let them go, but it hasn't really been explained.

 

[Matua]

I think the injuries are papering over Webster's performance. It's his get out of jail free card, when I think we would have been in the crap anyway (and arguably most of our best performances have come from injury enforced selections).

He's not the messiah the Warriors, the media, and certain fans made him out to be.

But, I'm not saying he's shit and we should dump him, but, I hope he's working on alternate styles now that his little-ish men gameplan has been worked out.

 

[sup42]

I find one of the most baffling things is allowing Katoa and Curran to leave.
Maybe they were offered more (Katoa) or had a clash with the coach (Curran).
Either way we lost two really good players and good coaches don't lose players they want to/need to keep.
Curran is being used far better at the dogs than he was here.
No doubt there was a reason to let them go, but it hasn't really been explained.

In the case of Katoa he was wanted. He was offered a contract but turned us down for the Storm.

Curran was let go to make way room for the like of Leka Halasima, Dimitric Sifkula, and Jacob Laban in that order.

It would have been nice to keep Curran over a few others but we have to let go some forwards in the coming year or three with all the decent forwards we are brewing in the NSW cup.

Hopefully Capewell comes right for us, he has been doing some good things since recovering.

Dimitric Sifakula is really highly rated, so you can see how we have a big load of back row talent when you add Laban in the discussion, there are lots of guys and not enough spots.

Obviously Curran costs more than our three Juniors that are being groomed for the back row.

 

[Rich102]

That makes sense. Who would have thought we would be having cap- worries with our squad.

 

[Matua]

I don't think the question is does it make sense to ditch Curran for three home grown players, but does it make sense to sacrifice Curran and not Ford for three home grown players.

Curran was often hit and miss but I could see the hits, I'm yet to see anything of substance with Ford.

 

[nswarrior]

Thinking today, the two big stories of our season :

1- bad luck with injuries
2- Webster just not being as good as we thought he was.

and tbh, that isn’t his fault. We got carried away.

He still is a good coach and we are fortunate to have him, especially given our record with coaches.

3. Key players coming towards the end of their career a bit faster then expected esp after an amazing 2023

 

[Beavers Headgear]

Katoa may have been offered a contract, but that is after he was left in reserve grade for a huge chunk of the season behind battlers. No brainer to move on and not showing him he was wanted

 

[sup42]

Katoa may have been offered a contract, but that is after he was left in reserve grade for a huge chunk of the season behind battlers. No brainer to move on and not showing him he was wanted

His defence sucked and his eyes only seemed to light up when running at the try line, kind of the archetypal Warriors junior, the best thing for him was going to the Storm and being left in their reserve grade to come up the hard way.

If guys are not happy about Reggies when their game needs work they will never develop the mental toughness at this club.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

His defence sucked and his eyes only seemed to light up when running at the try line, kind of the archetypal Warriors junior, the best thing for him was going to the Storm and being left in their reserve grade to come up the hard way.

He was in first grade from round 1 last year and has played zero games of reserve grade for Melbourne.

Only the Warriors ever made him play reserve grade.

 

[sup42]

He was in first grade from round 1 last year and has played zero games of reserve grade for Melbourne.

Only the Warriors ever made him play reserve grade.

Yeah ok cheers, i had it in mind that he did not stay the whole season up in grade.
I am glad he is gone, anyone that doesnt want to wholeheartedly be at this club is bad option for the Warriors more than any other club.

 

[Meth]

We look at Katoa and say “can’t do anything with that”

Melbourne look at him and say “that’s exactly what we need”

predates Webster of course

 

[Alan Johnson]

Two seasons, second worst than the first, averaged out to breaking even. Failure to meet potential but with some promise shown. Webster a novice coach working with middling, and in my view not premiership winning, squads. All things considered, happy to stick with him for a couple more seasons, for stability if nothing else. I don’t think he’s a mug, which is a reasonable baseline.

It’s extremely frustrating how this year we’ve handed some teams 2 points that should have been ours. The optics of making the finals two years in a row are obviously way better than finals one year, 14th the next.

 

[Big Marn]

Two seasons, second worst than the first, averaged out to breaking even. Failure to meet potential but with some promise shown. Webster a novice coach working with middling, and in my view not premiership winning, squads. All things considered, happy to stick with him for a couple more seasons, for stability if nothing else. I don’t think he’s a mug, which is a reasonable baseline.

It’s extremely frustrating how this year we’ve handed some teams 2 points that should have been ours. The optics of making the finals two years in a row are obviously way better than finals one year, 14th the next.

I am not sure if Webster is fully anti offload , but if he could just reintegrate it back into the game and not be so ultra conservative. So much field position and then dying with the ball, when just one or 2 more passes could have opened up the defence. Some of our losses could have been wins.
I know we used to be the offload kings fraught with danger and low percentage plays, but this coaching seems to have gone too far in the other direction. Is it a Cleary thing? I dont know the Panthers offload percentages.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

I am not sure if Webster is fully anti offload , but if he could just reintegrate it back into the game and not be so ultra conservative. So much field position and then dying with the ball, when just one or 2 more passes could have opened up the defence. Some of our losses could have been wins.
I know we used to be the offload kings fraught with danger and low percentage plays, but this coaching seems to have gone too far in the other direction. Is it a Cleary thing? I dont know the Panthers offload percentages.

Warriorball with lots of offloads hasn’t really been a thing for well over a decade, at least with any coaches that have stayed around and had any degree of success. Cleary wasn’t big on it, Kearney is a Storm process guy and Webby is a Cleary apprentice.

 

[Big Marn]

Warriorball with lots of offloads hasn’t really been a thing for well over a decade, at least with any coaches that have stayed around and had any degree of success. Cleary wasn’t big on it, Kearney is a Storm process guy and Webby is a Cleary apprentice.

yes but offloading is still an important facet of the game when defences are so good.
Watching Warriors games where we are on D and the offense gets a ball away when the player is all but wrapped up is very annoying, when we dont do anything to reciprocate in kind.
Storm actually keep the ball alive a lot. Im not saying go "lots of offloads". I would just like to see some semblance of an offload game to keep the opposition honest.

 

[Penrose Warrior]

We look at Katoa and say “can’t do anything with that”

Melbourne look at him and say “that’s exactly what we need”

predates Webster of course

All I've heard is that Katoa had Isiah Papali'i syndrome. Wasn't getting enough of his talent in NZ - home comforts, being one of the boys etc. Had to go to Melbourne to fulfill the very obvious talent. Just a shame we didn't have the right mentor in charge until he was gone.

 

[Manu Vatuvei]

All I've heard is that Katoa had Isiah Papali'i syndrome. Wasn't getting enough of his talent in NZ - home comforts, being one of the boys etc. Had to go to Melbourne to fulfill the very obvious talent. Just a shame we didn't have the right mentor in charge until he was gone.

I have no doubt that there is a grain of truth in this in that the Melbourne culture has got the most out of him. As a pedant though I do feel compelled to point out that Katoa wasn't a New Zealander in the first place (only moved to NZ at 17 and left at 20) and his entire NRL career has been based in Australia - so at no point in his NRL career was he actually at home in NZ or in a position to be enjoying home comforts.