NRL: Duo need to reclaim their mojo

Wade McKinnon needs to rediscover his attacking spark. Photo / Getty Images

Two of the most pressing problems that need to be addressed by the Warriors are not Stacey Jones and Joel Moon - but Wade McKinnon and Jerome Ropati, and finding a way to get them into top form, fast.

Everyone has a theory on why the Warriors have fallen into such a big hole this year and what they have to do to get out of it. Desperate digits have been pointed at everything - from Jones to the injury to Brent Tate to opinions that the Warriors have failed to cope with the two-ref system.

But the Warriors, still trying to find a way out of what has now become a familiar slump, are having to deal with something extra this year - the loss of form of players expected to be mainstays; players such as McKinnon and Ropati, unquestionably talented and whose ability has always been counted on by the Warriors in the past.

Ropati has fallen so badly out of form that he is being left out of selections at present and, while all agree that he is simply off his game, knowledgeable judges differ about how to help him reclaim his mojo.

McKinnon has been in good touch defensively and is showing signs of form, as in Friday's game against the Knights. But it is his searing counter-attacking and ability to break the line that the Warriors are missing greatly. That seems to have left his game right now and there are few signs of it coming back, although the wet conditions at Mt Smart didn't help him on Friday night.

To understand how important it could be to the Warriors, cast your mind back to last weekend's match against the Sharks, when only Jones seemed able to set up any meaningful attacking plays and the Warriors' lack of confidence and game-breaking ability was seen in their lateral running and their muddled inability to finish off sets of six.

"I think it is his injury still," said former Kiwis fullback Richie Barnett of McKinnon's attacking deficiencies (McKinnon had a knee reconstruction that destroyed his 2008 season).

"I never had an injury like that in my career but everything I have heard suggests that it can be a long time, maybe another whole season, before you begin to get back to where you were.

"I think that's the fundamental reason why he has lost that spark. The thing is, too, that he is part of a team that is under-performing and which has lost confidence and that is never helpful to anyone trying to come back.

"The other thing is that the Warriors still have worries in the halves, just as they always have had. Joel Moon hasn't worked out the way they wanted and they have only Stacey Jones organising attacks - and no one else - and that makes it easy for the defence."

The Warriors, including McKinnon, will struggle to beat that issue until they either find some halves capable of backing up or taking over from Jones, or someone else to direct attacks from within the existing team, Barnett said - something they had never successfully managed to do.

Former Kiwis captain Hugh McGahan had a slightly different perspective, noting that McKinnon had had similar problems at Parramatta before joining the Warriors, with a good debut season followed by fewer appearances as the coaching staff came to prefer Luke Burt at fullback.

McGahan acknowledged McKinnon's injury but said: "His debut season was what I expected of him. He was brilliant but he had a similar time at Parramatta where, for the last two years, he went into a bit of a slump."

McGahan said he felt McKinnon maybe needed "a kick in the backside" but felt that the advent of young star Kevin Locke in the team was providing that. Both he and Barnett recognised that McKinnon's form might be picking up again.

"He reads defence very well," said McGahan, "and the main problem in attack is that he has lost players to run off.

"The Warriors don't have that right now and in the past, he has had ball-playing forwards, other than Steve Price, to run off, not to mention others.

"But I also think he needs an attitude change and I wish he'd get all fiery and angry again because he seems to be a better player when he is spitting tacks - he doesn't look as though he is into his game from an emotional point of view."

Former Kiwis coach Graham Lowe agreed. He favoured dropping McKinnon or at least singling him out for a thorough working over from the coaching staff.

"I think it's a couple of things. First, he has lost a yard of pace and maybe some flexibility with that injury.

"But I also think he is trying to get back to where he was by relying on mechanical things only.

"By that, I mean he is sprinting, doing weights, training hard and really trying hard to be the player he was on the practice field.

"But you don't become a good player just through mechanics and just through the training field. There is an emotional side to it as well and he looks to me as if he is leaving that emotional stuff behind."

Lowe said that players like McKinnon were not just good players because they were fast and elusive. They also had an instinct which is fed by the emotional side of the game.

"He doesn't look quite hungry enough to me right now. He is a good player; an instinctive player and that instinct is fuelled by the emotional side of his game."

Lowe said he would favour dropping McKinnon to the Vulcans for a week or two and letting Locke loose at fullback or, at the very least, the Warriors coaching staff should be working hard on him to reignite the passion previously seen in his game.

The verdicts on Ropati were a little different. Both Barnett and McGahan said he was an obviously top international player who had simply entered a horror run of form and whose confidence had been eroded by same.

"I have always enjoyed the way he has played in past years but his last few games have been just dreadful," said Barnett.

"He's just got to do what Manu Vatuvei did after that lowest point of his career in that awful, awful game he had against the Eels. Ropati's just got to get himself back into the fray.

"I don't know what Ivan Cleary's doing but Jerome just has to get out there and stay in the game and prove to everyone what he can do; work hard and stay positive."

"He's being paid to do a job, so he should do it," said McGahan. "All good players have a form slump at some stage of their careers and the Warriors aren't making it any easier for him by having those ongoing problems at 6, 7 and 9 - but he needs to play his way back in.

Lowe disagreed: "I'd say he'd benefit from being a given a couple of air tickets to somewhere; from being told to take a couple of weeks off. Again, his is not a problem that's going to be worked out on the training field."