Season 2025 Changes I'd like to see.

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This may sound a little insane, but I don't think there's that much wrong with the Warriors.
We're a bit all cake and no icing right now, but that's a lot better than being all icing and no cake.

Webster's template is to smash and dominate the middle of the park and pin them in their corner, which we do quite well. This works a treat if we keep errors down, don't concede stupid tries and nail our scoring opportunities.

The keys that unlock this are the halves, good discipline and wingers who don't f*king fly off their edges.
Last year we had almost all of this - SJ had the season of his life, we defended well, kicked well and kept errors down.

The problem with the game plan is that it's brittle: the moment we have just 1-2 players who are cooked, not gelling, falling off in D, dropping their lollies etc. - the plan completely backfires. We end up tiring the crap out of ourselves and good teams now know to just wait for the fade and run through our fatigued troops. This season showed us all the good, bad and ugly; we got it working only in pockets, but when we did we took down Penrith with a B team.


So long story short...

I actually feel like we have the blueprint + 90% of the troops we need, but there are a few key switches we need to make.

- SJ has got to go, he's just done. Thanks for an awesome 2023.
- Invest in TMM, he's clearly got what it takes to run the ship. Let TMM work a rhythm with Metcalf, CHT is our utility
- We need at least one truly fast winger, which probably means Montoya goes. DWZ is flawed but does enough (just).
- We need to make the most of our backs, there's a few ways but Tuaupiki is best at fullback and CNK & RTS are versatile enough to succeed in other spots (providing the halves unlock them).
- Need a good 13, which is a problem with a busted Harris and no Walker.

Other forwards are great, Egan will be fine if we get the above right.


I truly think we'll have a good year!

Good rant echoing a lot of my thoughts.

I also believe that we are fixable with those issues you clarified. We are also entitled to expect a better injury run next season if this year was not the worst I would be surprised.

When you add in the constant mass injury toll to key players it makes building consistency impossible.

 

[sup42]

I was tempted to post 'tear it down and rebuild with NSW cup players' in effect take a year off finals hopes and really lean in hard to making 2026 and beyond our window to really attack the comp.

It is easy to just say that, the realities are a lot more tricky, you could lose a lot of fans that way, which is not worth it when the club is going so well off field, winning organizations find a way to have their cake and eat it too.

Part of my thinking around rebuilding at high risk is that seeing the two young Centers get carved, you realise that they will probably not improve a lot more in NSW cup since they were not being tested in that environment.

Ali and Moala are known as keen on defence with good basic grounding in fundamentals. The Eels ripped that to shreds with NRL set plays which could rip apart any Center in that comp at least once a game, so what do we do?

Dammed if you do, Dammed if you don't.

I guess I defer to Websters cautious blooding regime that sees these guys given more NRL in pockets, then breaks to build confidence and desire.

 

[sup42]

The halves question should start with the best kicking half at the club being pick number one.

You are not going anywhere without a kicking half.

The same criteria should apply to your other half, they should be the best kicker out of your options in the side.

Next year the automatic picks as it stands are TMM and CHT. I love what Metcalf brings, but the guy has to do the ten thousand hours of field kicking between here and round one twenty twenty five to be a better option than Channel or Te Maire Martin.

We saw what happens when you only have one kicker in SJ. The opposition tank your season by having game plans around only needing to worry about one kicker.

Also we saw what happened when we lost SJ, the blokes left had to get kicking quickly and on the whole they did not do to bad a job of it...but if we had a more balanced approach whereby the likes of CHT and Te Maire had been kicking as alternates to Johnson, they wold be better, we would be in a better position today.

I have no doubt Metcalf can do it, I say that knowing it is a highly specialist skill that takes hours of practice, but he is a very talented athlete, he is confident, and he has done some kicking, it is not foreign to him, he could and should be made to kick on every last play in cup till he starts to find some meters, worry about the accuracy later, just get him working that leg to find distance, like driving off the tee.....put him in the driving range at practice, all three of them, make a comp out of it....make Metcalf kick every ball in cup.

I digress. The spine I want to see has Metcalf paired with TMM provided both kick. And I want CHT in the 14 to cover our backs with our crappy injury situation.

I think with the way TMM plays bullet passes with Walker, the way he takes it to the line, having Metcalf as his partner would really rip teams apart in the red zone.

But we have to have a strong kicking game first which means Metcalf has to boot the ball a lot. Webster should take him aside and say hey Luke we are looking seriously at your dream of being a seven, this is the plan....you start with kicking and we will have a serious sit down and you will get runs in the seven Jersey.

 

[sup42]

Yes, but I guess I’d wonder whether it’s possible to play 6 with Johnson and show much?

Fair point.

Also people like Laban do not get to show much when Shaun paints by numbers, Shaun will always go to his Marata guys, the older guys, It is a thing with Stars, they don't pass the ball to the bench warmer..the ball always goes to a name, even when the no name is in a much better channel.