League: How to deal with the coach-killers

The departure of Mick Watson allows the Warriors club to regroup and start next year with a fresh approach, but the big question is whether coach Tony Kemp will still be around.

There are two arguments concerning the team. One says their points differential this year compared with last shows a side that are improving, are more able to stay close to opponents and are less likely to be thrashed. They have lost 10 games by 10 points or less.

The other argument says 10 losses by 10 or fewer points is as unacceptable as is missing the top eight, let alone falling to 14th; and that with Steve Price and Ruben Wiki on board they should have placed higher.

That the Warriors still frequently cannot score when they get inside an opposition red zone is a telling comment, as is the fact they let in late tries through the middle.

If coach Kemp has got a good game-plan, the players are not hearing it.

What's wrong with the Warriors? They need a specialist hooker and five-eighth and now they need a halfback, too. They need a field kicker who has length and accuracy and a high-percentage goal-kicker.

Most of all they need the mental toughness to stick through hard times in a game; they need to take the decisions that go against them on the chin, rather than losing focus.

How many teams beat them by scoring just after a turnover, by applying sustained pressure and running them down in the last quarter?

These are problems that have beset the Warriors every season. Every season they beat teams they should not and lose to teams they should beat. For coaches and fans alike, they would be one of the most frustrating teams in professional sport.

Kemp's future will still lie to some degree in the club review. That procedure will doubtless place much store on the opinions of the veterans Price and Wiki, who have both tasted success elsewhere, and possibly of the departing Stacey Jones.

What everyone knows is that a team which has had a player of the calibre of Jones for 11 years should have won a title by now.

The Warriors have at times played with a brilliance that befuddles, bemuses and bludgeons opponents. But the inability to know when to play that game and when to tighten up still eludes them.

Too often the fling-around, basketballing approach comes out late when they are playing catch-up - and risk-taking is not what's needed.

Composure and patience still elude them. They are generally unable to mount the sort of pressure from repeat sets that other teams put them under.

Again, there seems to be a lack of ideas when they get inside the final 10m. And there is definitely a lack of variation, with too many of them standing around waiting for Jones to pull a rabbit from the hat. That makes him an easy target for the defenders.

Man-management appears to be a problem - otherwise why would Jones and then Francis Meli ask for a release?

Despite the higher money on offer in England, most Polynesian players would prefer to stay with their families in warm climates rather than go to the cold of the north of England.

Manliness, or the lack of it, is another issue. Although the Warriors have a core of older players who should be comfortable with their ability to play at top level, the rest look quiet on the field, and that shows when holes open in defence.

The game is about taking responsibility as individuals, taking ownership.

The off-field dramas that have rolled on almost constantly since 1995, with coaching, player and management changes, have not helped. Nor has the inability to gather and maintain a core of older wise-heads, the types that hang around Aussie NRL clubs, in the background but offering advice born of years of involvement in the game.

At the Warriors, it has often been a one-man band.

There is still no great link to Auckland rugby league, let alone the rest of New Zealand.

One of the best assets the Warriors have is development coach John Ackland, who is the only one of the coaching staff to have completed a proper apprenticeship.

Ackland clearly has talent-spotting skills, and has coached teams from schoolboys to Bartercard Cup, with success at all levels. If you can coach teenagers, knowing which buttons to push, it's a good measure of ability to go further.

Kemp's problem is that he came into the job too soon, after too short an apprenticeship. He grabbed the opportunity when it came after the club parted company with Daniel Anderson but unfortunately for him he inherited a team of coach-killers.

His assistants Ivan Cleary and Kevin Campion loom as the handy replacements but they have less experience than Kemp.

Mick Watson and Daniel Anderson took the club to great heights in 2002, enthralling the country.

And even in 2003 when the Warriors thrashed the Bulldogs early in the finals, there was belief they would repeat the playoff appearances.

How did things go so terribly wrong? Probably lack of longer-term experience. And Watson's Machiavellian behaviour in casting off players has undoubtedly unsettled things.

Two hoary sayings that come to mind.

First, when the front office is running right, everything will run right on the field (or, put another way, when a fish rots, it rots from the head).

Second, there are only two types of coaches: those who have just been sacked and those about to be.

Apply that to the Warriors and Kemp must follow Watson.

The Warriors need more local knowledge as much as they need more Aussie knowledge. The smart move would be to bring in someone above Kemp with a proven track record.

They also need more experience on the board. The appointment of John Hart as an independent director is puzzling: how many games of rugby league has he watched?

One thing is certain. If the Warriors board does intend a clean-out after a disappointing season, it needs to be done as soon as possible.