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The Warriors need an Aussie coach to succeed

bcj new author
Roar Rookie
17th June, 2019
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bcj new author
Roar Rookie
17th June, 2019
10
1139 Reads

As the Warriors again face an uphill battle to make the top eight and the knives come out for Stephen Kearney, it’s worth reflecting that he is the only NZ coach to bring the Kiwi outfit into the playoffs, albeit only one knock-out game where they were well and truly spanked by Penrith.

In fact, Kearney is now the most successful Warriors coach from NZ in club’s history despite his adequate but uninspiring 44 per cent winning rate.

Prior to last year’s finals, not one of the four NZ coaches – excluding Tony Iro, who coached two games for two losses – had ever brought the Warriors into the playoffs, a staggering outcome and worse when you consider that the previous best season by a NZ coach was when the Warriors finished 11th out of 17 teams under Mark Graham last millennium.

Compare this to the success rate of Australian coaches. Under Aussies, the Warriors have made the playoffs more often than they haven’t – seven times, to be precise.

They also have a minor premiership under an Australian coach (Daniel Anderson), and both trips to the grand final have been under Australian coaches, Anderson and Ivan Cleary.

Panthers coach Ivan Cleary. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Wayne Drought)

Ivan Cleary is one of the few coaches who’s cracked the Warriors code. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Wayne Drought)

The data says the Warriors are more than four times more likely to reach the playoffs under an Australian coach than a NZ one.

This is not to disparage NZ coaches as the Warriors have long since become a basket case where the head coaching job is a poisoned chalice that has killed off a number of careers.

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Anderson and Cleary’s success overshadows the failures of Andrew McFadden and Matthew Elliott, the latter an NRL and Super League stalwart who couldn’t find any consistency at Mt Smart.

Last year, the Kiwis national team appointed an Australian coach, Michael Maguire, for the first time in its 100-year history, while in last year’s rugby union Six Nations tournament, the coaches of the top three teams were all from NZ and Australia.

Look at the top half of the English Premier League and you won’t see any of those teams with English managers.

The Warriors have had two successful eras despite never winning a grand final. What these eras had in common were smart, relatively young, hard-nosed Australian coaches who were able develop a game plan that didn’t compromise the prodigious raw talent of the team, but harnessed it, persisted with it, and unleashed it on the NRL in a way we haven’t seen since.

This includes the mercurial talents of Ali Lauiti’iti, Clinton Toopi, Shaun Johnson, Frances Meli and Manu Vatuvei, who all thrived under the tutelage of Australian coaches.

As the Warriors limp towards another season of frustration and their supporter base fractures, it may be time to look across the Tasman for a coach who can tame this beast of perpetual disappointment.

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