I have watched Matty Johns since he signed with Fox and had his own gigs. He doesn't "hate the Warriors", in fact he used to regularly tip us for the top 4. And like many others he has stated that a strong Warriors side is good for rugby league in general. But the club has become such a laughing stock that we've become easy whipping boys, and we have noone else to blame but ourselves. The last 6 years have been an absolute farce from the Warriors, starting from the top down. Some of the coaching, recruitment and retention decisions have been amongst the worst in the club's history, that combined with the fact that the culture of the place was clearly an absolute joke. Does anyone here remember how much shit Souths copped during their years of shite performances? They copped much worse than we have, and they're a Sydney based club with years of heritage behind them.
We've won 5 games, that does not erase years of rubbish. You don't just get given respect, you earn it with your performances on and off the field, and this club has failed in both areas - hence it is not surprising the reactions we get from the league media in general. This year is a strong start in terms of undoing that poor opinion, but it needs to be sustained. I for one am still sceptical, so I don't expect non-supporters of the club to be any different.
When people like yourself walked away from the Warriors, I got very concerned for the codes survival and blamed the Warriors for destroying the game here (our darkest hour, no wonder you're sticking to the reality path).
There are still some good posters from this forum that haven't come back. That's a shame, still as you say, the Warriors went beyond the joke.
Do you have a criteria in your mind by where the Warriors have done enough for un guarded support ? Or is it more of a gut thing?
My own take on it (I'm living it for now) is that when
Kearney sacked the players I felt listened to (,in a metaphorical sense).
I hope we never see the sack the players thread so popular nor Sack the coach thread so frequented in future.
It felt like all we had to keep us here was arguing over who was to blame, I'd actually given up on wasting thought on a solution.
Sacking the players and keeping the Coach was exactly the starting point.
Kearney brought in so many of the type of player that he likes (bruising backrow Prop interchange types, Centers with a lot of experience, a half with a Melbourne template in his head) my opinion of the Warriors changed.
It started to feel like 2001. A new team. A new CEO. Brian Smith was big news to me....I think that has been coming a long time...a real deal NRL coach in our set up. Mr Alex corvo.
When I saw the way they rolled out in Perth, my Journey to the light played out in the short space of that one game.
They looked different...lean and mean and they had more cardio capacity than the Rabbitohs....the counter punch was back...you score we hit back...I was gone...100% Warrior delusional syndrome" .
To me, the way they defended in round one, I thought we would destroy anyone
if only they could do this for eighty like the Aussies...if only someone could convince our players.
Meantime somewhere in the far West of Australia the battle wages on...after early promise the Warriors are now 12 versus 14 and Simon's not playing...
When the Ref sent a player off...my faith waivered...I thought oh crap we will lose from here...the old sick feeling kicked in....but no. The team conceded two trys...bang bang....but the Warriors settled and got a scrum like any REAL Nrl side would. Rather than run out of Gas after that set back they kept going til the last 2 minutes....then shit got shakey...but the Rabbits try was consolation. In the post analysis of that win I thought this may only last a week....but as they say the rest is history....no matter what's thrown at them...no matter how hard they have made it for themselves in some passages...someone always jumps in and says calm the heck down...get back to the plan...and they all get in the grind together and start rowing in the same direction.
Kearney has his own team now, his own staff, and I think it's reasonable to expect they win half their games from here. a feat I would be more than satisfied with since that would have them well in the top eight.
This year is meant to be a rebuild year.
It's a new team. In some ways a new Owner and new fans would be fitting...a new club ( just piss off with name changes and new Jerseys, new coaches aye Warriors).
This Broncos face a combination of forward no one has ever faced before this
Kearney creation.
