I think the fundamental problem the Warriors have is cultural. Not the team culture, but the wider culture the club exists within. I’m talking about the differences in the respective cultures of the rugby league heartlands in Australia and New Zealand. More specifically, the differences that exist between the working classes of the respective countries (and various cultural traits more broadly). The Australian working class has a confidence, cockiness and optimism that doesn’t exist to the same extent in the NZ working class, particularly in the Warriors’ home of South Auckland where economic hardship abounds and where it would be reasonable to assume there is much disenfranchisement. In my view these differences are reflected on the field across the Warriors’ now quite long and perenially frustrating history. This is not meant as a criticism or to denigrate a section of the community, but to try to make sense of the patterns we see in the Warriors year after year.
This is a complicated and sensitive issue which there are no hard truths or facts, only opinions and peoples gut sense drives these arguments.
The Browning of the Rugby codes is a fact backed up by representation at the highest levels and in Ruby league it has seen tiny Island nations roll out athletes who have gone on to set new records in League including Tonga going from seventy point hidings to NZ to defeating the Kiwis and the Kangaroos.
The problems at the Warriors have nothing to do with demographics, they have nothing to do with race or class.
The issue for the Warriors is that their selection pool locally is inferior by virtue of multiple challenges in a dying sport.
The Warriors by concentrating on the Auckland pool have restricted themselves to less varied players than the other NRL clubs who cherry pick footballers nation wide. Take the Storm, they concentrate heavily on the rest of NZ ex Auckland and take the best of the rest, a market that the Warriors should have been competing in, but decided for reasons of convenience to concentrate on the traditional Auckland Schools system which by happenstance meant more big Island kids vs other groups. Those kids demographic realities have nothing to do with performance and are not an indicator of future success, the issue is more nuanced than that.
The Warriors scouts are almost exclusively based in Auckland, whereas the Storm for example have a strong network through Stephen Kearney from the Waikato, across to the Hawkesbay and down to Wellington where the Storm Scouting is really strong.
The problem with Auckland Scouts is that they concentrate on Athletes rather than footballers, so they have this syndrome where they are constantly looking for the big signing score by uncovering the next Manu Vatuvei, while the other NRL scouts hunt NZ for footballers, they are looking for the next Stephen Kearney, the next Isaac Luke...people that are not built like the Terminator, people who are rugged and skilled with drive...in other words Footballers over Athletes.
The Warriors have had the wrong selection model, a hang over from the John Akland sides that ran over the top of smaller players to win reserve grade NRL titles.
Working class footballers are Rugby league, they are what this sport was born of.
The Warriors just need to keep looking wider than their failed Athlete model and they are doing that.
The Warriors Juniors below NSW cup are truly exciting, populated by South Islanders, who won the schools comp....evidence that Cappy gets the issues and as recruitment manager is loading our club with footballers who are not uniformly huge or fast tackle busting P.I players exclusively.
Rather we see a mix now, Pakeha, Maori, Pacific Island heritage players more representative of the Kiwis across the NRL who come together in the black Jersey and generally outperform the Warriors by virtue of actually winning competitions against the best players in the world.
Balance is the key, footballers over athletes is the recipe.
We needed to move away from any big, faster, stronger kid will do, (and we are under McFadden) to aiming at the most teachable kids first which ideally includes some of these genetically enhanced big humans that get bad press.
Mcfadden has changed our recruitment signing lanscape radically, from signing Aussie trained kids, to signing South Island School boys champions, we are definitely headed in a different direction.
Add to that the Penrith cast offs we are inheriting like Jett Cleary because of the Webster connection. We are also signing Ünion stars and Union discards (ergo Pasikala a Rugby perfomer vs Toby Crosby a Hurricanes discard).
We have long since abandoned the old South Auckland chestnut under Mcfadden without ignoring what South Auckland has to offer. Case and Point Rodney Tuipulotu Vea a South Aukland`product who made his name during Covid and through an ankle Injury as a serious off field trainer, watch the name he will be a future Warrior that few are aware of. He has Simon Mannering vibes.
