Youngster needs to rediscover his game - but if the team don't pick up it won't matter who's on the wing
Youngster needs to rediscover his game - but if the team don't pick up it won't matter who's on the wing
I wasn't surprised Warriors coach Ivan Cleary dropped Kevin Locke for Sunday's match against Melbourne.
I've been watching Locke pretty closely the past few weeks trying to figure out what is going on with his game. So far this season he hasn't lived up to expectations.
He is definitely lacking something. For a young guy who should have plenty of energy he isn't getting involved very much.
The Warriors really need him to get his hands on the ball and make things happen. He has raw pace and plenty of ability, but he is not utilising it.
Some people will say it is a classic case of second-year syndrome. I don't understand that at all. There's no real reason players shouldn't be just as good in their second year as their first. It's all in your head.
Sure, your opponents might figure you out a bit but then it is up to you to improve and make adjustments. Class players - which Locke is - shouldn't find that too hard.
I was lucky enough never to be dropped in my career so I don't know what it feels like, but the Warriors will be hoping Locke follows the example of Manu Vatuvei.
After that shocker against the Eels a few years ago Manu was dropped for a week but he came back strongly - and look at him now.
Being dropped is tough on Locke but, honestly, if I was Cleary I would have done the same thing. Cleary had to make a call for the good of the team.
With Cooper Cronk's pinpoint kicking game, there's no way he could have sent Locke out to face the Storm after the trouble he had dealing with kicks against Penrith. Locke needs to drop down a level and rediscover his game.
He has to figure out a way to get himself more involved in games because the Warriors need him at his best.
But if the Warriors continue to play the way they did against the Panthers it won't matter who is on the wing.
I was stunned by their performance last Sunday. Penrith score a third of their tries from kicks, most of them coming from Luke Walsh kicking to the wings.
The Warriors must have known that. But either they didn't formulate a game plan for dealing with it or they didn't follow the game plan they had. Time after time the wingers and fullback Wade McKinnon were left isolated.
You could tell from the very first set of six that the Warriors were in for a bad day. On the first couple of runs out of dummy half the backs got picked off by the markers and made no ground.
They then tried to go wide to pick up easy metres and got hammered because they hadn't been going forward in the middle. If you don't start your sets off well nothing works. You're doomed.
They made no ground on that first set, and the second was even worse. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Sure enough they started to drop the ball, they got tired, even more mistakes came and they ran out of energy and couldn't defend late in the second half.
It showed how reliant they are on Manu to get them out of their own half. When he's there they just chuck him the ball. But when he wasn't there they didn't seem to know what to do.
I was also pretty shocked at the lack of energy and enthusiasm at the start. You can't win a game in the first 15 minutes, but you sure as hell can lose it, which is just what the Warriors did.
They showed at the start of the second half how they can play, but it's no good doing that when the game is as good as gone. They need to come out firing like that right from the start.
After the Manly game, the Warriors said they were tired after playing against Brisbane in the heat, but they didn't have that excuse on Sunday.
And the absence of senior players such as Simon Mannering, Steve Price and Micheal Luck is no excuse either. The players need to recognise they must bring some decent energy when they play on their home paddock.
To have any chance against the Storm side the Warriors will have to go back to what worked against the Bulldogs and Broncos - moving the ball around and playing second phase.
But first they need to get things right in the middle of the park.
