Peter Jessup: Time for Warriors to stick with one combination

The basic reason for the Warriors' loss to the Sharks at Cronulla yesterday was the 12-0 start they gifted the home team in the first quarter.

As anybody who has had experience playing the game will tell you, it's suicide giving a home team a headstart then having to play catch-up.

Right up there, though, is the fact the Sharks had an effective kicking game and the Warriors did not.

Stacey Jones scored a repeat set with a smart kick early on and it was his delivery to Manu Vatuvei that got them their first points but after that there was no threat, no pressure.

It will not be until the Warriors get a field kicker with both length and accuracy that they prosper on the scoreboard. They continue to play too much of the game at the wrong end of the field.

The confusing thing for the watchers is the continual shuffling, the lack of faith.

Not so long ago it was Jerome Ropati who was touted as the new five-eighth, an assessment made because he came out of the Bartercard Cup as far and away the best player bar the veteran Steve Buckingham, who for unknown reasons was never tried at the Warriors. Ropati was shifted to the mid-field and never came back.

Joel Moon was bought as a specialist six. After a few games he was shunted to centre, then recalled, and yesterday hauled off mid-game along with Ropati, the most unusual decision this year. It smacks of panic.

There is little chance of improvement until the coaches decide to stick with a halves pairing and go with it, let the players learn, get comfortable with each other and the support runners, the kick-chasers.

Every time Lance Hohaia comes off the bench the team lifts. He has been relieving hooker and moving at times to the halves. He should be halfback, Moon the five-eighth.

The club must start looking to the future soon as 2009 is all but gone. The future is not the ageing Stacey Jones.

Nor is it the disruptive, bipolar Tim Smith, who fled Parramatta after repeat drinking-related bad behaviour and has left Wigan; nor is it Brett Finch, fired by former Warriors coach Daniel Anderson, who for my money is a good judge of a player's potential, then signed to the Storm, who have since said they don't want him in 2010 - their coach Craig Bellamy also a good judge.

Meanwhile, the Warriors ditched Nathan Fien, signed immediately by master coach Wayne Bennett to a three-year term.

They appear to be stuck in admiration of an icon.

If Stacey Jones has a role now it is as bench impact player, not the 80-minute playmaker.