Diary Of A Warriors Fan - Confusing Cappy
Jonno, all the best son.
What's been the most consistent thing regarding the Warriors in 2015? The inconsistency of Andrew McFadden's selections.
You could lay the blame on the players, like many and 'Cappy' have done this week as Konrad Hurrell was dropped for Jonathan Wright. But how are players supposed to improve when they are yanked after a bad game, which has happened with a variety of players this season.
No one would argue that Hurrell's effort and defence weren't up to par against the Sharks, I highlighted a bum of an effort from Hurrell as Valentine Holmes strolled past him in Monday's Diary entry. But it's also important to note that Hurrell and Solomone Kata were playing on different sides of the field than where they have been previously this season - Kata got dominated by Blake Ferguson at left centre, where Hurrell was playing against the Sharks. Another puzzling decision from McFadden and another decision that makes it hard for players to build any sort of consistency themselves.
My issue with dropping Hurrell is this myth about defence. Every team wants to be good at defence, but the truth is that only the top four are really good at defence and the Warriors definitely aren't. They have always stated that they want to be good defensively, but here we are in round 22 and they are still a weak defensive team - no team in the top eight has conceded more points than the Warriors, so why bother?
Why bother when it's round 22 and you're still not too flash defensively and need all the help you can get on attack? The Warriors were extremely average on attack against the Sharks, who are a nice defensive side but that's the issue - against the Roosters they scored 0, Sea Eagles they got 12 points and against the Sharks they got 14. Their attack is so disjointed and lacks any creativity that we've got a Warriors team who are struggling to score points against good defensive teams.
I thought coconut-style was supposed to score you them points!?
So why not just throw caution to the wind and try go all out to simply score more points than your opponent ... given that you've never been good defensively? Hurrell, well you would struggle to tell me that Wright is a better attacking weapon than Hurrell.
McFadden has this fantasy of the Warriors being a good defensive team, as we all do. Which is nice, but clearly his message hasn't filtered through to the players for whatever reason and the Warriors' season now hangs in the balance - they need to win right now and I would be be turning my focus to score 18+ points in every game as opposed to trying to stop teams scoring points. Which, I must repeat HASN'T worked.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but that would mean that Wright helps the Warriors win and for the first time this season, I'm not at all confident. Maybe that's how I should approach every game as the Warriors are that team who win when you don't think they will, but damn, they are coming off a mediocre performance against the Sharks where they lacked any sort of offensive potency and crumbled defensively.
Combine that with the fact that they are coming up against a Dragons team who have their best forward pack on deck and have a bit of confidence after getting that win last week.
The two forward packs are even-Stevens I believe. Simon Mannering again starts on the left edge, but he'll spend time in the middle as he did last week as well as Ben Matulino, who Chad Townsend struggled to get the best out of on the right edge. These are our two best forwards, but Tyson Frizell and Joel Thompson are mighty fine edge players themselves and it's going to be a nice battle to watch for on either flank.
We do have a slight size advantage, but the Dragons forwards, at their best all rip in and know exactly what needs to be done to hold their own in the middle. We have young tearaway forwards who get us all excited, they have Trent Merrin and job-doers so it's hard to judge who will get the advantage there.
Which leads us to the play-makers and I'm going to go all out with this depressing tone in the hope that it means the Warriors will win because I'm not listening to anyone who is telling me that Townsend, Tui Lolohea and Sam Tomkins are better than Gareth Widdop, Benji Marshall and Josh Dugan.
Townsend and Tomkins, well they looked like bums last week and it's unfair to rely on Lolohea to spark the whole team. Besides winning, the best-case scenario is that the Warriors are taught a lesson by Widdop and Marshall in how to control a game and how to best use their attacking weapons with the right mix of well-worked plays and razzle dazzle.
God, Jah, Buddha and Allah, please help the Warriors.