Steve Deane: Price faces crucial choice over Warriors

Steve Price's continued service for Queensland is taking its toll. Photo / Getty Images

It's time for Steve Price to put his club first. That means calling time on his glittering representative career with Queensland and Australia.

There are no quick fixes to the Warriors' dire predicament, the extent of which was again exposed by Saturday night's 40-4 thrashing by the Eels.

The squad needs a significant overhaul, but that can be achieved only over time as players come off contract and better ones come on the market.

But one thing they must do immediately is demand more from Price - their captain, best player and top earner.

At 35, Price continues to defy the odds and perform at a remarkable level. But he is doing so less often. The toll taken by his continued service for Queensland is almost certainly the reason.

Of the 10 Warriors games before his mandatory stand-down for Origin I, Price played eight. Of the 11 since, he has played five. His season total of 13 appearances is on track to be the lowest in his five years at the club.

Price would probably argue that is mainly down to bad luck. He has missed two matches because of a blow to the throat, two to Origin stand-downs and another to concussion resulting from a punch.

His latest absence, which has stretched to three matches, is from a rib cartilage problem.

Price's season has followed a path regularly trodden by ageing players - a fast start after a refreshing off-season, followed by a gradual decline as the rigours of an extended campaign take their toll.

In some ways, though, he has bucked that trend. When on the field, his contribution has remained steady. Before Origin I, he averaged 146m from 17 carries per game. Since then, those numbers have increased, to 155m from 19 carries per game. Price might also point to the fact his most productive game of the season - when he rumbled for a staggering 223m from 25 carries in round 13 against the Sharks - came just four days after Queensland's 28-18 game one victory. But a more relevant number is 55 - the percentage of games he has missed since round 12. Given the Warriors are a vastly better side with Price in their ranks, it is a number that really hurts them.

Whether it is fair to ask Price to sacrifice his personal ambitions is debatable. He makes no secret of the fact that playing at the highest level is a massive part of his motivation. He lives for the big occasions, and he would hardly want his last act in an Origin match to be being carried off on a stretcher.

He has also done much more for the Warriors than provide the go-forward on the park. In a time where misfits, deviants and thugs are a blight on the game, he has been a clean-cut, marketing-friendly figurehead.

The value of that can be measured by bums on seats. In 2006, a season blighted by the salary cap scandal, home gates dropped below 5000.

Even at its present low ebb, the club is pulling more than 10,000 fans. That suggests they have doubled their hard-core support in three years, and Price has been a big part of that.

It's true also that Price's presence in Queensland and Kangaroo teams has benefited the Warriors. It has shown top Australian players that joining the club is not a death knell to their representative ambitions, helping the club attract a better quality of player.

But this season Price's Origin commitments came at too high a cost.

The Warriors will head into next season in a perilous position. A repeat of this year's failures would undo all of the progress made in 2007 and 2008.

Price needs to ask himself what would mean more this time next year - having led the Warriors out of the muck, or having won another Origin series?

If the answer isn't the former, he should stand down from the captaincy and let the lion-hearted Micheal Luck take over full time.

* Steve Price's games by the year

2005 - 16

2006 - 21

2007 - 23

2008 - 17

2009* - 13

*Three games remaining.