Who is the NRL coach under the most pressure? Most will tell you that it's Warriors coach Andrew McFadden, heck, I've even told you that. Over the past 12 months I've held McFadden accountable for the way Warriors have played, questioning tactics and their style of play while riding the rollercoaster. Only that this rollercoaster isn't just a typical Warriors rollercoaster, this is the rollercoaster of a young coach who was thrusted into the job well before his time after Mathew Elliott was given the flick.

I like to think that my criticism/analysis of McFadden's coaching is based on some sort of truth. I watch the Warriors play and don't like the way that they try hard to play structured footy, trying to emulate certain teams in the NRL while their roster and skills suit a completely different style of play, which is one of a few examples of my issues with McFadden's coaching right now. Point being that I'd be the first person to tell you of McFadden's flaws as a coach.

I'd also be the first person to tell you that sacking McFadden this season would be extremely dumb. 

A lot of the pressure on McFadden stems from the expectations for the Warriors after they signed Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Issac Luke. Both would make extremely strong cases for being the best players in their positions and when you combine them with the other weapons that the Warriors have, you've apparently got the best roster in the NRL, a roster that should automatically compete for the Premiership.

You could also argue that Tuivasa-Sheck and Luke are the players that the Warriors have been missing for a few seasons. Sam Tomkins was a non-factor as a Warriors fullback, he rarely ran the footy and rarely strung multiple games together while Tuivasa-Sheck came to the Warriors having broken the record for the most running metres in a season. The Warriors have long needed a dynamic running hooker, someone like Luke who could make the most of quick play-the-balls.

Sure these two should make the Warriors better, but their presence definitely doesn't guarantee anything, especially not in their first season playing together with a new club. McFadden's job as coach is to extract the most out of his roster and this means blending all the various weapons and job-doers together, resulting in a cohesive team that plays off of instinct instead of spending a split-second pondering where this player is going to be or what that player is going to do.

I haven't seen any of this in the first two rounds of the 2016 NRL season from the Warriors, which is all good. Luke and Tuivasa-Sheck came back late from the Kiwis tour to England (Luke apparently came back overweight after a holiday), Shaun Johnson spent the summer coming back from that injury while another key piece in all of this Jeff Robson wasn't exactly signed with a full off/pre-season with the Warriors ahead of him. That's the Warriors spine and they would have only enjoyed a few weeks/a month or two in each other's company on the training paddock.

Excuses, more excuses for the Warriors, excuses for McFadden. These are excuses, however they are also facts and when you consider the rest of the NRL and how bloody good other teams are, you need everything perfectly aligned to achieve success. Adding new signings to a young roster doesn't guarantee anything when there the Brisbane Broncos, North Queensland Cowboys, Melbourne Storm, St George Illawara Dragons, Cronulla Sharks, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, South Sydney Rabbitohs or Sydney Roosters doing everything in their powers to win it all.

I just named eight teams who could realistically finish in the top-eight instead of the Warriors and all eight of those teams have their own little niche, a niche that they are banking on for success. 

While Johnson was doing leg-presses and squats just to get his leg right and Luke/Tuivasa-Sheck were in England, Ben Hunt, Anthony Milford and Darius Boyd were plotting (along with the greatest coach of all) how to go one better. 

While Jeff Robson was contemplating his future, Jonathan Thurston was enjoying some time off and pondering to himself how he can be better (yikes) to go back to back.

While the Warriors and McFadden were (still are) trying to decipher the code to making the Warriors a solid defensive unit, Craig Bellamy and the Storm were fine-tuning defensive schemes that have been in place for roughly a decade. That the Warriors signed former Storm assistant coach Justin Morgan to do this very job should tell you all you need to know about where either team is at in this regard.

A lot of the noise regarding the Warriors comes from two different perspectives. One is from Australian rugby league media who apparently have inside gossip on the Warriors - something I find hard to believe given the sensibilities of CEO Jim Doyle and the scratchy reliability of Australian rugby league media (it's easy to make shit up). The other is from silly New Zealand media who have long failed in their duty to keep it real regarding the Warriors, usually rugby folk who offer a Warriors hot-take every now and then.

Combining the Warrriors' current situation with a dosage of common sense suggests that we all settle in, grab endless supplies for food/drink/whatever vice you dabble in and prepare for the long-haul. I haven't heard a cry for patience from McFadden or the Warriors which could be part of the issue but you'd be silly not to agree that the Warriors and their spine will be a lot better after 10 weeks of consistent footy against very good opposition and not a few weeks on the training field.

This also goes for McFadden who, like the Warriors, is so far from a finished article as a coach it's laughable. McFadden took his first NRL coaching gig in 2014, taking a job that has seen three other coaches come and go since Ivan Cleary left after the 2011 season. Only three previous Warriors coaches have a higher winning percentage than McFadden's 47.5% and two of those coaches took the Warriors to Grand Finals. Allow me again to stress that this is McFadden's first head coaching gig and unlike Trent Robinson with the Roosters or Paul Green with the Cowboys, McFadden is learning his craft at a club that had little in the way of foundations for success in place.

It's actually mind-boggling how people expect McFadden to deliver success within this context.

The NRL has been immensely competitive in recent seasons and will continue down that path this season. There's many coaches who are better than McFadden right now and there are many teams who are better than the Warriors right now regardless of who the Warriors signed. I've got a vast amount of trust in Warriors CEO Jim Doyle, a bloke who to the best of my knowledge turned down the NRL's top gig to guide the Warriors through these growing pains and I don't doubt that there will be long-term benefits in sticking by a young coach like McFadden and his roster.