General Nz Warriors And Wigan Warriors Partnership

[Sup42]

Cheers RP !
That's one hell of a system the club pick thing would suit the mentality of the NZ Warriors who if they were called out by an NRL team say.....would probably rip their nuts off for it.......that being the case we would miss out because irrespective of where this team ends up in the league placing ( no matter how low ) no one wants to play them in a sudden death game because they're as likely to beat you as top of table lol

I remember when the NZ Warriors played in England the one time , and to be fair to their opponents who were playing the bottom of the Australian Super league (us).....they got sold a lemon playing us.....coming into a new comp as the pariahs suited the Auckland Warriors just fine ( I think stevo etc were ranting about " If this is bottom of Australian Superleague we are in trouble )....whereas the reality was that the Auckland and New Zealand Warriors are serial underperformers who only wake up for big games against big name / fresh competition.

 

[RidingPie]

In fairness Stevo is pretty bias towards all things Australian and together Eddie and Stevo just like to sensationalise everything. Take the two wrong video ref decisions in the Wigan v Hull KR match, they only showed the incorrect try decision to the Hull KR coach and didn't mention the no try that should have been.

The team that gets picked from the club call always try and use their selection as motivation so maybe it adds a bit of spice to the proceedings.

As an interesting tale, back in the days when they tried the world club challenge across the whole league, I was at college and still living with my parents. My mum and I watched the Canterbury v Wigan match live on Sky (we were the only English team that won in that round I believe). At the time we were having an extension built on to the house as my mum is disabled and we were having a downstairs bathroom added, as Simon Haughton (I think it was) scored to put us in front just before half time the builder came in to check on us. We'd been shouting so much he thought we'd had a fight.

 

[Sup42]

Is it me or does Stevo hate Wigan ? .....I wouldn't know as well as you.....but that's the impression I've gotten from some real rubbish I heard him call in games this year ( black is white kinda stuff any neutral Rugby league fan can see is utter bollocks )

LOL @ your story with you and your Mum. I had a similar experience with the Wife when we were first dating , She came to my flat to watch the first ever State of Origin match she had seen.
Anyway we were yelling and carrying on , our neighbor who we didn't know real well at the time ( he came to our wedding two years later ) called the cops because he thought the missus was being Murdered.
The Police asked her " Ok then who won the game "
" The Blue team " Lol hardly sounded convincing.........but the rest as they say is history......four kids coming up on our eighteenth year Married
BTW all the best for the arrival of your new born

 

[RidingPie]

Is it me or does Stevo hate Wigan ? .....I wouldn't know as well as you.....but that's the impression I've gotten from some real rubbish I heard him call in games this year ( black is white kinda stuff any neutral Rugby league fan can see is utter bollocks )

LOL @ your story with you and your Mum. I had a similar experience with the Wife when we were first dating , She came to my flat to watch the first ever State of Origin match she had seen.
Anyway we were yelling and carrying on , our neighbor who we didn't know real well at the time ( he came to our wedding two years later ) called the cops because he thought the missus was being Murdered.
The Police asked her " Ok then who won the game "
" The Blue team " Lol hardly sounded convincing.........but the rest as they say is history......four kids coming up on our eighteenth year Married
BTW all the best for the arrival of your new born

Thanks... this is number 3! Lets say it was a happy surprise when we found out Laura was pregnant at the end of January. We were both pleased about it (even though after number we'd decided to stick at that number for a least a few more years). The only bad point for me was we found out the week after we'd got number 2 (also known as Owen now... or stormagedon before he was born) sleeping through.

Eddie and Stevo are massively against Wigan. In any close game involving Wigan they route for the other team. If its Wigan winning they'll be egging the other team to score, if Wigan are losing they plead with the other team to keep them out. The general rule is, Stevo is a Batley fan who now supports Leeds, Eddie is a Warrington fan.

 

[Sup42]

Information sharing is a healthy thing. The Warriors and ABs ARE in competition. However, this feels traitorous to kiwi sport. There is nothing more kiwi than the All Blacks yet they are choosing to actively support the opposition of another kiwi dynasty. That does not sit well with me. The ABs are big business first, sporting dynasty second these days.

The Broncos connection and NZ Rugby goes back a long way too. Robby Deans I recall used to sniff around with Wayne Bennett a lot back in the day ( Same thought occurred to me about by passing the Auckland Warriors ).
Graham Henry to his credit hosted that joint training session with Stacey Jones's Warriors and the Auckland Rugby guys.
Mark Graham was used as a defensive coach I think.....anyway the Auckland set up are less paranoid about the Local League contagion than the Canterbury lot lol

 

[ramraider78]

Sorry but playing catch up here, but we are not seriously sending our best juniors over to Wigan in an exchange program are we?

 

[Sup42]

Sorry but playing catch up here, but we are not seriously sending our best juniors over to Wigan in an exchange program are we?

That is one idea yes. An exhchange program like the AFS at school a year overseas having a different experience. Wigan having the best Junior development program in the ESL is where they idea works.
They would have to be Juniors and not reserve graders to get games in the Junior Comp ( no reserve grade there for imports as i understand it )

 

[ramraider78]

That is one idea yes. An exhchange program like the AFS at school a year overseas having a different experience. Wigan having the best Junior development program in the ESL is where they idea works.
They would have to be Juniors and not reserve graders to get games in the Junior Comp ( no reserve grade there )

OK thanks for the update - Can't see it this concept working IMO especially with the large Polynesian player base currently in our 20's set up and in the Warriors development system; if young players get home sick over in OZ with no family support imagine flying to another country around the world; only commenting with the boys who have gone over to OZ from our club and got lost in the system or come back home for various reasons. Maybe some Juniors going over there could make a go of it but very much doubt many would at all.

 

[snake77]

It will be interesting to see how much player movement there is between the two clubs or if any; I'd exclude Tomkins as that deal looks to be separate and more of the catalyst to start the dialogue between the two clubs about forming a partnership.

If we sent a few of our younger guys to join their academy side say and they progressed to the point of being ready for first grade over there. Assuming they hold a Pacific Island passport are they still exempt from the import quota?

I'd see it working something like the following:
NZ Warriors have a bad streak of lower leg injuries and hear Manchester United have made good progress with a new technique re-habbing player from these injuries. Instead of waiting until the end of the season to make a trip to the UK we call up Wigan who make a trip to Manchester United and getting us the information we need.
Wigan want to look at some new equipment the AFL team are using; they call us as we are in Australia every second week so we send someone over there to get the information they need and report back.