Steve Deane: Warriors' cloak and dagger brings debatable rewards

In the lead up to Democratic Party primaries before the last US election, Hillary Clinton claimed to have once landed at an airport in Bosnia and run to a waiting vehicle under heavy sniper fire.

In reality, she was greeted on the tarmac by a group of schoolchildren and their teachers.

Even when the discrepancy in her account of events was revealed by some pesky television footage, Clinton denied she had lied. She had merely "mis-spoken".

It's fair to say there's been a fair bit of mis-speaking at the Warriors this year.

First there was some mis-used words about how much Brett Seymour was enjoying being back playing footy when in reality he had a broken thumb that would sideline him for six weeks. Then there was hamstrung winger Manu Vatuvei coming back to shock the Bulldogs.

A day earlier, a club official confirmed injured centre Jerome Ropati had withdrawn from the side, but there was no mention of Vatuvei stowing away on the flight to Sydney.

Even this week there has been bent talk coming out of the Warriors' camp.

Asked on Tuesday if he had any more surprises up his sleeve, coach Ivan Cleary said Ropati was "the only one from the rest of the gang that is any chance of coming back".

Micheal Luck definitely wouldn't be coming back as his broken finger "looked like a snake" and needed another week to heal properly.

Cue Wednesday and Luck happily announcing on radio that he was just off for an X-ray and, if the news was good, he would play against Penrith.

As it happens, the news wasn't good. Cleary was right; Luck won't play.

Given the club's track record, it's hard to know whether it was simply a case of two people not being on the same page, or another attempt to yank the sheep fur over the public's (and Penrith's) peepers.

The question is: do Warriors fans care? Herald columnist Richie Barnett wrote a few weeks ago that they shouldn't. The job of the club and the coach, in particular, was to produce a winning performance.

All is fair in love and war was Barnett's stance. Fair enough. League loves a bit of skulduggery and Barnett, as a former professional, has long been schooled in that philosophy.

But is he correct that fans don't really mind being taken for saps as long as their team gets the right result? Or is there an obligation on the club to provide its ticket-buying and pay TV subscription-buying fans with a decent flow of accurate information?

What of those fans who bought tickets for the Cronulla match in the expectation Seymour would play?

It's doubtful anyone minds a bit of gamesmanship, but how are fans supposed to follow a club if they can't trust much of the information they receive from it?

NRL regulations state that clubs must name their sides by 5pm on Tuesday. This is great for certain sections of the media, particularly weekly magazines with early deadlines. But, for the clubs, it is an unwanted and impractical measure.

Accurately naming a side on a Tuesday for a Sunday match is all but impossible. But that doesn't excuse NRL clubs from sending out updates.

The Warriors can argue they are under no obligation to conduct their affairs in public - that if they want to keep their team details secret, that is their choice.

That holds true only to a point. The Warriors court publicity. They use it to drive interest among their paying support base and to satisfy sponsors.

The defence of privacy falls over when the club itself issues information that proves to be incorrect and then willfully fails to correct it in a timely fashion.

It's hard to think of another sphere of business where routinely misinforming the public is permissible. And it's certainly debatable whether the club is gaining any real advantage from all this cloak and dagger nonsense.

Selection surprises tend to backfire at least as often as they produce any tangible benefit.

Just how clever would the Vatuvei masterstroke have looked if Brett Kimmorley had kicked that 78th-minute field goal?

The Warriors' actions are self-serving. If Vatuvei is fit to return for a home game, you can bet you'll hear about it well in advance. Vatuvei's presence means bums on seats and the club will certainly put extra revenue ahead of any tactical gain.

It is for fans to decide whether they mind being misled and mis-spoken to. But maybe the Warriors - given the club's Matter of Faith motto - should weigh up whether a loss of just that is really worth it.