Graham Lowe: Warriors' owners may have to take action

Eric Watson. Photo / Brett Phibbs

There are a lot of performances under public scrutiny at the Warriors.

Little now can be done on site this season because the damage is too great. But the ball has now bounced back squarely into the owners' court.

Mark Hotchin and Eric Watson saved the club from extinction when they bought it and also relieved the worries of many Warriors' fans.

But now they would have heard the mutterings of discontent and it will be concerning them.

They both probably feel compelled to act. What form that takes is anyone's guess but it is a huge responsibility they will not take lightly.

The dilemma facing them is: which part hasn't worked properly? There would not be a person in their organisation that hasn't given his best.

But the fans need confidence in the club coming up with a better result next year.

Some wag yelled out to me as I was leaving the stadium last Sunday: "Lowie, that team is not worth 4 bob, let alone 4 million."

The NRL salary cap is A$4.1 million ($5.1 million).

If you did an exercise on the market value of their players, it will fall well short of that cap.

When you buy a player you are buying an investment for the team and when you see that investment is becoming a losing position you've got to close it out.

The Warriors have to ask themselves - could they have recruited better?

Brent Tate was a good buy and it was bad luck that saw him sustain such a serious injury. However, the question is would he have made the difference if he'd remained injury-free?

What we do know is the team played a type of football that didn't work.

That's the problem that needs to be addressed before anything is done and one option does come to mind.

Few players have worked themselves to a standstill as much as Simon Mannering and it's telling. He's had four years of back-to-back football and he desperately needs a rest, and now is the chance to give him one.

He's going to be critical to the Warriors' hopes in 2010, but if he is not given time to recover properly he won't last five minutes next year.

He should also be rested from the Kiwis and the Warriors should insist he is made unavailable this year.

Matualino is another player needing a little special attention. He needs someone in his ear reminding him of the natural ball-playing talent he has.

He also has in him, if encouraged, the ability to turn a game in a moment with a scud missile type of tackle that can cause the opposing team a total rethink.

His technique actually reminds me of the tackling strike power that former Kangaroo Ian Roberts constantly delivered for me at Wigan and then later when I lured him back to Manly.

Matulino and Mannering probably illustrate the core of a problem for the Warriors' lacklustre year.

Somehow both have turned into the same sort of player when, in fact, they have a different set of skills.

Their back-row teammate Micheal Luck is another who could be given an early spell. You can't do a zillion tackles a year without it taking its toll.

However, it is maybe unfair of me to single out just a few of the forwards. Because giant winger Manu Vatuvei has struggled against injury for most of the year, and fatigue and injuries certainly played a major part in the loss of form suffered by Jerome Ropati.

It can't ever be denied there has been a lot of great effort from all the Warriors players in 2009 - it just hasn't worked for them.

The good thing Hotchin, Watson and all the Warriors fans can look forward to next year is that all the problems are fixable.

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