McClennan quiet on future after heartbreak
By Daniel Gilhooly, 20 Aug 2012 Daniel Gilhooly is a Roar Guru
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Warriors coach Brian McClennan couldn’t bring himself to discuss his future after a shattering 18-16 loss to Penrith on Sunday consigned his team to a sixth straight NRL loss.
A converted try to centre Travis Robinson with three minutes remaining handed a much-needed win to the lowly Panthers and silenced a crowd of 11,000 at Mt Smart Stadium.
Errors and a tiring defence brought on by more injury bad luck opened the door for Penrith and will keep the fire burning under McClennan for another week.
The first-year coach fended off questions about job security beyond this season – or even this week.
“I’m not sure, I can’t really answer that,” he said.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ll keep trying to do the best I can for my players. I’ll control what I can control.”
McClennan said he was involved in talks with Kiwis coach Stephen Kearney on Saturday regarding a possible role at the Warriors but wouldn’t reveal any details.
McClennan preferred to focus on what he felt was a gutsy effort by his team after he was forced to go to the interchange bench six times in the first half. One occasion was to replace tackling-machine hooker Nathan Friend, who exited in the 17th minute with a dislocated shoulder.
“I’ve said to them in the sheds, I’m proud of them,” McClennan said.
“To only have four subs in that second half, that’s a pretty good effort by the lads.”
It was an important result for Penrith coach Ivan Cleary, the former Warriors mentor admitting the game was of a poor standard.
“It looked like two teams who haven’t won much this year, that’s what that second half looked like,” Cleary said.
“Just watching that second half, I thought all we had to do was sort out some of our own issues and we’d get over the line.
“We didn’t manage to do that until three minutes to go.”
The Panthers were locked with Parramatta in last place coming into the round while the Warriors will remain in 13th thanks to Robinson’s late heroics, set up by strong charge from Kiwis prop Sam McKendry.
Following heavy losses to the Sharks and Cowboys, this performance was a return to the Warriors’ previous trend of letting leads slip.
They opened the scoring when centre Ben Henry fell on a Carlos Tuimavave grubber and it was 10-0 when halfback Shaun Johnson intercepted an attempted Michael Gordon cut-out pass and raced 80m to touch down.
A period of Panthers pressure resulted in a try to Kevin Kingston three minutes before halftime after five-eighth Lachlan Coote accelerated into space.
Henry’s converted try soon after halftime was cancelled out by the dangerous Coote with 20 minutes remaining when he spun out of a poor James Maloney missed tackle.
The Warriors are now one loss away from matching their worst-ever season losing streak of seven, set in 2000.
© AAP 2013The Crowd Says (2) | Page 1 of Comments
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August 20th 2012 @ 10:03am
oikee said | August 20th 2012 @ 10:03am | Report comment
? Proud of them.
The players were at it again, all coming over to console Maloney when he missed a tackle. They had better start to get angry, annoyed at players falling off tackles, missing tackles, bad reads and just plan no effort.
Example,
The young kid, Taumavarve took the ball for a 20 metre restart, ran to the defence(3 big forwards) and got hammered and driven back 5 metres.
Then they gave it to Packer who made 8 metres next tackle. So 7 metres forward, driven back 5, and next hitup 8 metres, all up 2 wasted hitups for a 10 metre gain. They need to be smarter than that, and they made a break and then threw it to a front rower for the next attack.
They are exactly in the same boat as the Broncos, no guidence in the halves. Both teams have a half decent forward pack, and they are getting no support from their backs, it really is the problem. Both teams are also playing juniors, blooding them. If they get injured they then have to blood more juniors.
This system is killing both clubs, the Broncos lose players at the end of the year, same as the Warriors.
Example, next Year the Broncos lose 2 of their best future players, Beale and Teo.
Warriors lose their playmaker Maloney, and Luck.
I cant see either team really doing much good next year. It will take 2 years and then if they lose anymore experience, it could be back to square one again.
Both clubs are being punished for having a great junior system. We cant keep them all, other clubs are buying even the good juniors that are coming through now.
The Fish, Henry, Sao, the half i heard was also moving on, it seems that bringing through juniors is a bad idea, you get punished twice as well. As soon as the juniors you kept dont work out, you have to buy players from other clubs to fill the gaps, or continue to lose games. The Broncos are prepared to keep losing for the next 5 years, or until they find out they cant win anyhow without buying some decent players.
They could not win a premiership with Lockyer sinse 2006, how do they ever expect to win a premiership with him gone.
Both clubs need to be rewarded for having to rely on their junior bases.
It takes too long to bring juniors through and have them up to NRL level. By spending large amounts hanging onto some juniors, the next year you have to start letting them go, so you lose the best juniors anyhow. Then you find out you need better players, and what happens, you have to buy back the juniors you let go for 5 times the amount you would have to pay, plus you spend a million bringing them through your system in the first place,. ??
Get angry, i am. Tell your CEO what is happening. They cant seem to see this, and they cant see that they only have the choice of their own area’s juniors to pick from, while other clubs can choose from over 2 countries juniors, just come in and offer them a small contract, bring them through to a-grade, if they do well let them go and your team has to pay a fortune to get them back, buy back your own juniors.
If they dont do well, no harm done, they just offload them, throw them to the dump.
They can do this because they offered them very little to begin with.
And this is why i say the big clubs who bring through lots of juniors have to be rewarded, somehow. Weather it be exempt from playing your own juniors on the cap, or having other clubs pay you a sum for taking juniors from your club, either way, we cant keep punishing the big clubs , losing the huge fan base, while we keep little clubs with no juniors alive, for little outlay.
I dont care if these clubs can afford to buy all the good players, good, but getting them for nothing, then bringing them back to beat your brains in every week is getting pretty tired.
The cap system is now flawed. Made obvious by the retirement of Lockyer.
If you cant win a premiership with the best player in the world, how you ever going to win one with kids.
August 20th 2012 @ 10:09am
Go warriors said | August 20th 2012 @ 10:09am | Report comment
It has been a very dissapointing year from the warriors and a real reality check after last years high. To me it just shows how tough the NRL is and how difficult it is to stay at the top.
I do think Brian McClennan deserves another year. I dont think it would be fair to sack him after one year. Newcastle have also had a dissapointing year but I am sure Newcastle wont sack Wayne Bennett.