Matt Elliott: Warriors make good players worse

Former Warriors coach Matt Elliott. Photo / Greg Bowker

Former New Zealand Warriors coach Matt Elliott believes the club's environment has a negative effect on its players.

Elliott, who was in charge at Mount Smart for 29 games from 2013-2014, told Radio Sport's D'Arcy Waldegrave that the Warriors have wasted the talents of several good players over the years.

"Bad players go to the Melbourne Storm and turn into good players. I see good players go to the Warriors, and get worse," said Elliott.

"That isn't about their ability, that isn't about the quality of the person, it's about the environment, and the environment needs to change. Changing the environment is awkward, and you're going to have to go through resistance. That's wasn't something that in my experience there, that was embraced."

Elliott believes there needs to be a complete change in the whole approach of the Warriors organisation.

"The behaviour of the Warriors, as far as professional rugby league people go, isn't good enough.

"You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that something needs to change with the culture of the Warriors. What change requires is going through some complexity and some resistance, and if you're not prepared to go through that and you can't embrace that, it's not going to change."

Despite that, Elliott doesn't believe that there has to be a change in ownership for those changes to happen, but believes that Eric Watson's reportedly impending sale to Auckland businessman Paul Davys could have some positives.

"My experience personally with Eric has always been really positive, I think he's a really good person, but good people don't necessarily build good culture. It's a full-time professional role and even at an ownership level I think proximity and being on-site would certainly be of benefit to the Warriors.

"I'd say Eric has a lot of other priorities which probably has diluted that attention a bit."

To build from the ground up, the Warriors have to nurture their talented players in a smarter way, says Elliott.

"They've got talent - My thoughts when I was there was that eventually the NRL should be saying 'We need to have another team in New Zealand', because there's just too many talented players everywhere in New Zealand.

"The way that talent is being developed, and the way that the talent is being put in a structured environment and holding each other accountable - not just at a coaching level but the whole organisation - needs to change.

"It's not a quick fix, and it feels to me the Warriors have been looking for a quick fix."