Graham Lowe: Warriors learn much from big catch

When Stacey Jones was still piloting the Warriors around Mt Smart Stadium, he was famous for his passion for dropping a line out from his tinnie to regularly plunder the bounty of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour.

And from all accounts, the little fella could easily have been a direct descendant of the greatest fisherman of all time. Maui was reputed to have pulled up the North Island with a primitive hook and none of the fancy bait that today's hopefuls use to fill their quota.

In fact, the teammates Stacey invited to join him were in awe of the success he had in personally depleting the snapper stocks on offer just 15 minutes or so from his launch point.

Out of all this there's one certainty.

The brilliant halfback would have long ago plotted and committed to memory the exact positions where he had his greatest reel-em-in successes - lining up that rocky outcrop with that shag on a rock and that grove of trees on one of the inner harbour islands.

You see, Stacey was too bright to ever forget why he had a great day fishing - and he would have returned to the exact spot of his successes time and time again.

While he may now be limited to catching whatever the pollution hasn't already seen to in the English Channel, his talent with hook, line and sinker should in itself be a lesson to Warriors coach Ivan Cleary.

It might seem odd that I'm talking about lessons for a coach whose team have just taken the defending premiers to the cleaners in an outstanding display.

But just as Stacey returned time and time again to the spot that would have put at least a couple of tidy snapper a week on his granddad Maunga Emery's table, so Cleary has to identify the spot which turned his team's flagging fortunes around, and take them back there week-in, week-out.

Occasionally these special spots will let them down for any number of reasons, but the most consistent results are usually gained by understanding totally what worked and what didn't.

And if the fish aren't around, there are stock answers given as to why.

The same goes for football clubs when things don't work out as planned.

In fact, most clubs spend an enormous amount of time trying to pinpoint the cause of their last loss.

I reckon it's more important to understand why a win has been achieved and at least the same amount of resource as analysing a loss needs to be applied to coming up with the answer.

This will have been one of the major challenges facing Cleary this week.

His job is to understand why his team's performance against the Tigers was so outstanding.

Two of the most difficult questions any coach faces are trying to understand what makes a team produce consistently good performances, and/or why they are not playing to their potential.

Quite apart from anything else, against the Tigers the Warriors always looked dangerous and in control of the game. Cleary would have been deservedly pleased with that.

The Tigers looked nothing like last year's premiers, but that was overshadowed by the number of positives.

Rookie prop Evarn Tuimavave must have been given tremendous encouragement and more than a little licence to try to create opportunities, as he produced one of the best Warriors front-row jobs of the season.

His offloads at the line were instrumental in the team's success, but so too was the backing up of his teammates.

Fullback Brent Webb was outstanding in supporting the young front-rower.

In fact the team as a whole backed up better than in any other game this year. It was certainly the combination of Webb and Tuimavave that proved lethal.

Nathan Fien looked much better suited in the hooker/dummy-half role and the combination of Grant Rovelli and Jerome Ropati at halfback and five-eighth was solid and must have pleased Cleary.

I always believed one of the reasons the club fell away after reaching the grand final in 2002 was that the-then coach Daniel Anderson did not really understand why they got as far as they did.

It is one of the biggest traps to fall into in coaching, but I hope the experience of Warriors director of football and former All Black coach, John Hart, has been able to assist Cleary to create a picture of the spot which brought the team's successes.

I'm expecting the Warriors to be too strong for the Sharks this weekend, although Brett Kimmorley's kicking game will ensure Cronulla get more than their share of field position.

Kicking is still an Achilles heel for the Warriors and an area that needs plenty of improvement if they are to get consistently good results.

As an aside to Saturday night's game, I was disturbed to see the results of the lifting and drive-back tackle in which Tigers wing Daniel Fitzhenry broke a collarbone. I would like to see any lifting at all of a tackled player outlawed.

That sort of play does nothing to enhance the game and as shown last weekend, can easily lead to serious injury.

As for the Sharks tomorrow night, let's hope like Stacey, who landed a few monsters himself, Ivan and his boys can line up the success spot again, and reel in another big one.

A couple of young blokes out of the National Junior Competition made an impact in their side's performance in last week's Lion Red Fox Memorial.

Eddie Purcell (Mt Albert) and Constantine Mika (Otahuhu) showed maturity beyond their years and suggest that Auckland Rugby League have got things on the right track with their junior development programme.

In round four of the Fox, the match of the day should be the local derby between the Otahuhu Leopards and the Mangere East Hawks at Henham Park.

On paper it's an even go but being unbiased I'm tipping the Leopards to win.

Other winners should see top of the table Mt Albert overcome Marist, Northcote beat Papakura and in a close game the unlucky Te Atatu to be too strong for East Coast Bays.