Long rant about Cup footy incoming.
Last week was probably the best Cup game I have seen from a Warriors side (hard grinding middle battle with a 6 nil score approaching half time, Warriors with all the ball and all the running showed patience and stuck to the process, flood gates opened later off well earned clinical play) . Unfortunately you do not get that often.
Our results are up and down....some games are a painful watch if you are looking for entertainment.
I wouldn't discourage following the team though, I find it best to take a mindset of the games being like preseason trials, the result being not as important as seeing why Webster picks people like Laban, Moala, Ale, Paul Roache, and Taine etc.
You can see why we are not as good as we could be at that level, the NSW cup halves are both pedestrian (Luke Hansen and Ben Far) and both have lots of skill deficits.
They cannot really set up the plays in the fashion of what we have become accustomed to in NRL. They tend to play that one out crap too much and their kicking games are average.
This is a real shame with all the running talent they have around them.
But I get why the Warriors have done it this way, with two super cheap going nowhere halves in the reserves. At other clubs that would be crazy, you would want ready to go NSW cup future halfback stars pressuring the top side.
But the Warriors do not need to waste cap space on NSW cup level halves. They have a log Jam at NRL level with four genuine NRL halves. So no next Gen kid is going to come here, because they are not getting past SJ, TMM, CHT, Metcalf.
Rather the Warriors have done the sensible thing and signed potential stars beneath Cup for their Harold Matts SG ball sides...including this Jett Cleary experiment.
It means our tradesmen gap fillers in Farr and Hanson can hold the spots in cup till the teenagers are ready to knock them off, or when Metcalf is fit, it means that one of Farr or Hanson will have to stand aside and are unlikely to complain about it and pack their bags for another club.
Cappy really knows what he is doing in the way he has structured our development system. We have never had one like it.
The other interesting thing about watching all these cup guys is that aside from Kosi, we seem to be going for smaller lean fast Wing options.
As far as forwards go, when you put Bunty in there, he is above all those stars we rave about in terms of performance in cup, but he looks like monster at that grade, however you just have to remind yourself of the age gap, and that some of those cup boys are not far behind Bunty.....and they are teenagers!
Speaking of Bunty, something I noticed that has changed at the Warriors, is that they are allowing some of our props to gain weight. Last season Bunty was in the punishment group in preseason for coming back over his weight goal. This year Bunty has really piled on the Beef and the club are happy about it. The same is true of Dimitric who has come back from injury a heavier monster, and it does not seem to have harmed his game one bit.
I was wondering whether that is a consequence of AFB leaving, himself being a relative big fat boy prop that has a huge motor and the extra weight works for him.
If anyone gets around to watching the Warriorholic Toby Crosby interview, it is fascinating to hear him compare league training to Union. Union is much harder, you get flogged he says.
Then he describes how playing the games, League is much harder to play, no rests etc, as he points out, you are done after only twenty minutes of league game play.
Overall, the thing that gets me most excited about Cappys management of our future talent, is what the club achieved in the Harold Mathews cup this year.
Those school boys of ours were always going to struggle against Australian Schools, bearing in mind most of our 15-16 year olds don't play League all year at school, some only just switched from Union, many only started playing league in their teens, unlike the Aussie schoolboys who are bred on it like we play Union.
I watched the first two games, and yeah, we looked like a team that had never played Harold Matts before, we got humiliated the first game, really ugly, and the following game was not much better.
Over the short season though, the Warriors set up turned these first timers into a well drilled school boys side and they did themselves proud by scrapping into last place (6th) in the finals.
Quarter finals saw us play the team that gave us a hiding in round one (Eels 34-6) we beat the undefeated Eels 30-20
Semi Finals we played another undefeated Bulldogs in a defensive slug fest 12-10
Grand Final Warriors vs Magpies, Warriors being the first debut team to make a GF in 54 years.
Magpies red hot favorites, undefeated in the regular season, first time playing the Warriors. Our boys were in trouble from the kick off, looking well outclassed, conceding back to back Try's.
So it was pretty amazing that the kids pulled the go switch and went on to blow the Magpies off the park, sparked by our star spine players and having Monsters like Lennox Tuiloma dragging three and four guys over under the post and twisting to score (Lennox Tuiloma is a freak forward that has unbelievable power and determination, seen in school boys here and everyone is scared tackle him, he will be an NRL star, just a natural beast player in his teens).
Jack Thompson the halfback we signed from NSW is something to behold, as is the boy Radcliff from Palmerston North at fullback. Tyson Hanson the Stand off is a prospect as is that sides hooker Kaawyn Patterson who won player of the tournament.
Taken all together, basically Cappy has scouted a group of sixteen year old spine players that are as good as any club in the NRL. Our half back Jack Thompson was pinched from the Newcastle Knights system three games into the comp. And gee, he looks like a teen half most Scouts would kill for, I would really love to know how we pulled off the epic poach from Newy.
One can only hope we can keep the little Aussie kids that we are head hunting for our juniors, winning a GF and playing alongside the best of NZ school boy talent will help for the likes of Jack Thompson to stick around.
Jett Cleary is another interesting experiment, are we being Cuckoo birded here? raising the next Cleary for Penrith? or is there a genuine chance he knits into the Warriors fabric. I guess the bigger part of it will come down to how we handle them and on field results.
Warriors being the first debut club to win the GF since 1970 will help us keep all our Australian signings, which is why I hope our NSW cup team wins, to retain the players we have taken off clubs like the Roosters etc..
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