1. The loss of Sonny Fai. Not only was he ready to explode, but the hit on the squad mentally would have been massive.
2. I don't buy into this injury stuff, yeah we lost Tate but a lot of teams lose key players. We should have adapted better.
3. Too much reliance on bombing to Manu.
4. Ian Henderson, slowest hooker in the comp. Severely stopped anything happening in the backs becuase he was so laboured.
5. Wade McKinnon. So little impact. Safe, but horrendously slow and laboured this year. Played like a pussy.
6. Backrow, Lillyman and Luck are too similar although Lillyman played good the last 6-7 weeks.
7. Lack of enthusiasm. Its a sad indictment on a team when a prop who's making 200 metres for the night is the only bloke chasing a bomb, gets it, and scores without any Warriors within 20m of him. Second to last week, Lillyman makes a big break straight up the middle, the closest bloke to him is 30m away, the left winger who's come from depth to be the closest. The centres, halves, hooker, lock, fullback... all of whom should be begging for an opportunity to trail an attacking break were no where to be seen.
8. Axing half the team. Look, I don't think Rovelli, Fien, Witt, Lauaki are all that good to be frank. I don't think the halves could win a premiership with this club. But the way it was all handled was extremely poor. Can only cause friction and disharmony in my book.
9. Jerome Ropati's defence. Any good team this year knew to hit it two wide on Ropati's side and you were in. Has a nasty habit of coming 10m up ahead of the defensive line and being beaten on the inside, making his winger cover like a desperate whale leaving his corner badly exposed. Ropati is close to the biggest disappointment in the entire NRL in 2009.
10. The halves in general were too slow. Although the ball they got from Henderson was so slow anyway, Jones while still having some guile was playing too basic a game plan thanks to Ivan Cleary and then didn't have any pace to change it up himself. Not a blight on the bloke, but all Warriors fans knew his best days ended with that injury in 2003, and 6 years on our management made a move only our management could have.
I think irrespective of everything point 1 did it in for us. First 5 games (3 trials and 2 NRL games) the Warriors were hot. After that they could barely do anything. It smacked of emotional sentiment at the start, and then the ebb of facing reality beyond that.
Horrible season, horrible season. Hated it. Massive expectations... and this result. Disgraceful. Cleary has till R10, I'm a forgiving bloke who thinks he has a good future as a coach but this end of year review has to be substantial and make significant changes to our on field play. Poor Denan Kemp came and went and touched the ball like twice in open space. All we wanted to do was hit it up in the middle for a bomb to Manu, which was disgraceful and farcical.
IMO, Jerome Ropati, Wade McKinnon, Ian Henderson and Ben Matulino are nearing last chance saloon. Matulino came to first grade as an enormous talent but has played like a pussy all year. He's barely gone close to breaking the line which is odd for an athlete like him. Ropati's defence, horrible. His hands, horrible. You can directly attribute about 3 losses to him, particularly Saints in Wollongong. McKinnon, horrible. No speed, no strength, timing all over the place. Yak. Henderson, yak. Ropati (Likiliki), McKinnon (Locke), Henderson (Mara), Matulino (Taylor/O'Regan) all have a lot of blokes under them capable right now of playing their spots and doing a damn good job. The off season is huge for these blokes for their careers IMO.
