It's the same out the back play every other NRL team runs, the Warriors are particularly good at it down the right, but it's not a revelation to anyone.
It's the same play.
The revelation is that every single team in the NRL knows that it is the first play the Warriors use in every game.
The revelation is that Penrith / Para / Brisbane / Manly / Canberra all got scorched in the first three minutes of the game by a play that their tip sheet had written in at # 1
Apart from that yeah it's hardly a revelation Tomkins holding the ball up long enough to put Hurrell through some poor bastard in 75 % of the Warriors games since Tomkins arrived.
The point I was making is that playing a bog standard set move is a revelation for the Warriors and with their unique player type it takes more than an experienced Aussie from a structured team to permanently change the way the Warriors play Football ( We have been fond of recruiting Storm players in the hope their uber structured ways would rub off...that has been a spectacular failure ).
As any Aussie Commentator will spout " It's hard to know where to put your finger on it " with the Warriors....Tomkins has cracked the Warrior code and in less than a season has been more influential in our style of play than twenty years of switching coaches and importing Aussies.
It's interesting because The current Rabbits coach was a Bellamy disciple and instilled that Storm pet play into Tomkins during his time as Wigan coach.
For those genuinely interested in the differences....you only need look up Hurrells original highlights reel on youtube....he was a by comparison pre Tomkins a very crude barge and bash merchant.
The biggest switch Tomkins has acheived at the Warriors is being influential in their using the width of the park....any Warriors fan with a pinch of league knowledge would admit that the Warriors main attack weakness is not being able to create overlaps or one on one plays for both wings.
They are either left edge 'one dimensional' ( the Manu years ) or right side top heavy.
Ben Ikin made the point of Hurrell that the Warriors have fed off a go to guy and that used to be Manu and now it's Hurrell.....he is right however he didn't mention the underlying cause.
The Warriors have lacked a spine player / pairing that can link both sides of the park.
That had a flow on effect....It meant previous coaches were limited to one side of the field or using second rowers in endless 2nd man plays to offer a point of difference to the kick to Manu or the give it to Konrad and expect him to bowl people over.....or lob it to Johnson and stand around like browns cows watching him crab across the field in the hope he can single handedly create something.
You will often hear people like Gordon Tallis perpetuate the Myth about the Big Warriors forwards and playing direct.
That's because of the reasons I've stated already....the backline ball movement has been so dysfunctional pre Tomkins that it is easy to mistake the direct play amongst the forwards as somehow mutually exclusive to playing like other NRL teams ( Structured fast, low mistake rate set plays ) when in fact the Warriors keeping the ball in the forwards was symptomatic of that same dysfunctional inability to blend a Shaun Johnson with a James Maloney in a consistently structured way.
Both good players but neither of them could single handedly bypass people like Neilson in the way Tomkins can deliver a ball straight to Manu.
The influence Tomkins is having over the Warriors attacking play is profound....inside a season he has killed off the jungle ball unpredictability element the opposition expect ( him and Townsend are what's different in terms of cattle )/
A remarkable catalyst for change to playing predictable conventional structured rugby league Warriors coaches have tried to master through various default means since 1995.
There have been partial successes in the past....Cleary was a pragmatist....however without a 108kg Winger performing acrobatics Cleary didn't have the diversity we see now.
