Rugby League: Kemp in the hot seat

By PETER JESSUP

Tony Kemp showed he wasn't shy of a fightback in 1987 when he took on the New Zealand Rugby League. He wanted to break out of restrictions imposed on him as a Junior Kiwi, and join the fledgling Newcastle Knights club.

Now he has another fight on his hands - to try to turn around the floundering Warriors who, given their talent, should be near the top of the table but are instead just shy of the bottom.

Kemp promises change. There has to be some.

He wants 80 minutes of consistent football and promises to deliver that, rather than wins. If they keep playing for 80, victories will come.

"There's no doubt we hit rock-bottom. If we get a win right now it's a bonus."

He will change some personnel, but it was more a matter of getting the best from the Warriors' 100-game veterans than bringing in Aussies, he said during his first full game preparation since taking over from Daniel Anderson.

They have to take small steps because the game system was put in place for the season and it is too hard to change everything mid-season. But he wants to make adjustments to where and how the players are working, and the shift of Stacey Jones back to halfback is a start.


He believes Jones, when he fires, will lift the others and that the responsibility will help Jones.


The basketball passes are on hold. A priority has been to concentrate on the off-load, making the right decision on when to hold off.

"One of our main areas of concern is ball retention, the main thing now is to be in the game and you can't do that without the ball."

He wants to put more responsibility on the players to own their part of the field. The outside backs' defence has to improve.

Graeme Norton will help him to the end of the season, and he has asked former Kiwi Tony Iro in to give advice and coaching.

"There's a library of league knowledge out there - if I think I can get something for the betterment of the club then I'll ask."

Now 36, Kemp had a long playing career, unlike his year-older former boss. That was one reason suggested by some for the players' lack of response to Anderson.

Kemp went from Taranaki to Wellington, made the Junior Kiwis and was scouted by the new Newcastle club which was about to enter the Australian premiership.

He had to beat the NZRL's transfer restrictions first. The case went through the High Court as the NZRL board fought to retain control over its development players and seek transfer fees if they left to play overseas, at a time when Kiwi players were becoming fashionable.

The NZRL's then-president, George Rainey, had no heart for it: "How can we stop a freezing worker from Waitara taking up a deal to earn himself $74,500 a year?" he commented to a friend.

The Kemp case set a precedent and, after he won on a restraint-of-trade argument, doors were opened for others to follow his path to a big wage and the experience overseas that has undoubtedly added value to Kiwi teams since.

Kemp went on to an 11-year career as a pro-player with the Knights and later the South Queensland Crushers in Australia and at Castleford, Leeds and Wakefield-Trinity in England before turning his hand to coaching.

He had planned on a five-year apprenticeship in the NRL before chasing a head-coach job, but that all changed dramatically last week when he was elevated from assistant following the removal of Anderson.

But Kemp maintains he is ready for the job.

There were some tough early days at Newcastle as a player, including a losing sequence of seven games in 1991, and Wakefield-Trinity, where he was player-coach, were not table-toppers - all good learning experience.

It's a tough ask for a young coach to be given a team with three wins from 11, a long injury list, little morale and a barrel-full of rumour about discontent and departures.

Kemp looked cool, calm and collected this week on the back of a win first-up over Canberra. But the test will be how he will cope if that win turns out to be a flyer built on the emotion of the coaching change; whether he can shoulder the losses and walk the team through the worst times.

But that early encounter with the NZRL, for a guy just going 20, suggests he should have it.

League types from those days remember Kemp as a brash young man full of himself. He's mellowed, but only insofar as he's now more open to taking on board the bigger picture.

He still has that drive to win and the self-confidence that goes with it.

He was a five-eighth for most of his career, and coaches did a lot of talking to him about how they wanted the game run. It's now valuable experience.

He has learned plenty about the systems and structures of the NRL under Anderson. He feels the playing career will help him add some understanding to issues such as fatigue and handling pressure. "The one thing you can't coach is the intensity of a game."

He won't use the injury list or the lengthy suspension of three players this week as any excuse for losing. He expects those players to get keen and put pressure on the rest as they come back.

He and chief executive Mick Watson are moving through the player list, with most already secured to contracts for 2005 or beyond, to tell them their part in things. "There are several who are an integral part of the future."

There are no specific player targets on the market that he wants.

Tony Kemp

Age: 36. Married with two children.

Born and raised in Taranaki, grew up in Waitara.

Career:

Professional league player/coach since 1988.

Randwick, Wellington 1987. Newcastle Knights 1988-93.

Castleford, Leeds then Wakefield-Trinity 1993-98.

South Queensland Crushers 1997.

Junior Kiwi 1987, Kiwis 1989.

31 games for the Kiwis, 25 tests 1989-95. 9 tries, six in tests.

Player-coach W/T 1998. Coach Leeds reserve grade 1999/2000 (title-winners)

Warriors 2001-04

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Warriors draw and results - 2004 NRL

Other NRL fixtures and points table