Professional sport is professional sport and the warm-fuzzies permeating from a sensitive time on planet Earth, shouldn't take one away from the hearty realities of professional sport. Sure, it's unfortunate for Stephen Kearney to be ousted as Aotearoa Warriors coach at this time and doesn't provide the best 'optics' for the club and yet, to get deep into those warm-fuzzies would be to completely ignore some woeful Warriors footy under coach Kearney.

This is a complicated matter with all sorts of angles to entry in discussing the firing of Kearney; as always I'm staying mellow and going with the flow. The simple reality is that the Warriors haven't been very good under Kearney and if you frequent the Niche Cache, you'll know that the first two games of 2020 were two of the worst Warriors performances I can remember. Since the post-pando restart, the Warriors were slightly better.

Pretending that the Warriors were anything more than slightly better is definitely pretending. The only two wins came against North Queensland Cowboys and St George Illawara Dragons who have the same 2-4 record as the Warriors and are bottom-eight teams who I reckon will struggle to grab a top-eight spot. The other four games were all against teams currently in the top-eight and the Warriors lost all four, with a total points package of 98 against and 18 for. That's four games against top-eight teams and the Warriors conceded 20+ points in all four of those games, scoring 6+ points in just one of those four games.

I understand the warm-fuzzies around the Warriors for their efforts in moving to Australia and yeah, niggly as fuck etc. Don't forget about those first two games of the season though in which the Warriors only try was a penalty try and the Warriors didn't appear on the same level of footy as the Knights and Raiders. This is where things get interesting as we have to stack all these shitty stats, performances and ideas on top of each other to genuinely understand Kearney's coaching tenure.

Viewing this in a vacuum of the Warriors being meh in 2020, is simply lying to yourself. Mark Graham is the only Warriors coach who coached 50+ games and had a lower winning percentage (36%) than Kearney's 41.9%. Six coaches with 50+ games coached and Kearney's 5th best.

In 2017, the Warriors ranked 12th in average missed tackles per game (29.3) as Kearney's tenure started.

In 2018, that jumped up to 4th in average missed tackles per game (33.4).

In 2019, the remained 4th in average missed tackles per game (33.9).

Right now, in 2020, the Warriors are again 4th in average missed tackles per game (31.5).

Not a good sign for a coach who is apparently a defensive operator. There are other stats like penalties conceded that increased under Kearney's guidance, but at the start I was eager to see the impact of Kearney's rugged, hard-nosed history and that was never really present in the Warriors outfit.

There were also significant battles, that from an outside perspective felt like Kearney vs someone. There was a veil of financials and salary cap stuff with Shaun Johnson's departure, although connecting some dots leads one to believe that there were differences of opinion between Kearney and a key play-maker. The result? Kearney won, Johnson's a Shark.

The Isaac Moses situation is also a factor and while I won't speculate on how the NRL kicking Moses out of the NRL agent stuff has impacted the Warriors decision, the Moses mafia was definitely all over the Warriors. Any time I heard Moses/Broncos chat, I kept pondering Moses' influence at the Warriors as Moses has as much a presence through his coaching and playing clients at the Warriors.

It was good to start as Kearney's connection to Moses helped bring a few players to the Warriors, then it got weird. I'd suggest that given the NRL's action against Moses and the Warriors parting ways with Kearney are related, as well as limiting any influence of Moses at Mt Smart is a good thing.

The timing?

As unfortunate as it is, the Warriors were looking at another season of mediocrity. There were absolutely no signs that the Warriors would be a contender, few signs of a top-eight team and to continue with the status-quo would be rather depressing. Would you rather nip it in the bud now and start to move forward, or let it fester?

Kearney's roster?

I saw something that suggested that Kearney never had the roster he wanted, or a strong enough roster to compete. This is completely false. I allowed immense patience as I could see that it would take time for Kearney to have an influence and a major part of that is allowing Kearney to build his roster. Through Moses, Kearney got the players that he wanted and players he thought he could build this club around. Kearney neglected many fringe players for a long time as well, so this is a two-way thing; Kearney brought in players he wanted and also opened the door for many to leave. That smells like the exact smell of Kearney getting his roster and still not doing very well.

The players are distraught?

So, so, so weird.

I definitely don't believe that Kearney brought the best out of his players, or operated with a style that suited the players. And yet, the players need to take extreme ownership of this situation because their performances were never really good enough to win consistently. If the players loved Kearney so much and were desperate to play for Kearney, it was rarely present or visible.

Most importantly, overall I reckon is that the that Warriors never had a legit identity under Kearney. This is important because it's what fans cling to, it's why fans connect and engage with the Warriors as they buy in to the identity of the club. Under Kearney, the Warriors were mundane and all attacking funk was subtracted from their game. That's cool as it looks like Kearney is buidling a tough Warriors team, gritty and aggressive - something that fans aren't too familiar with for the Warriors but something that can connect the club to fans.

Yet the Warriors sucked as a defensive unit under Kearney. With Kearney coaching the Warriors, they were never good enough to score 20+ points consistently and win games via their attack. Nor were they good enough to defend their way to wins. No identity, no visible style of play and a diminishing connection to fans in Aotearoa.

Kearney's arrival brought the Winds Of Change at Mt Smart yarns. I could see a path forward, immense change was made and I stayed patient about the process as A) these were deep changes within Mt Smart and B) positive moves were made incrementally. Come 2020 and on the field, the footy vibes were the worst they had been during this period.

Not only that, but there is immense confusion in how the Warriors want to build their club and that is frustrating because that's what the last three years have been about. Under Cameron George's guidance, the Warriors have brought in the likes of Kearney, Brian Smith, Alex Corvo and Nathan Cayless (among others) only for them all to get less than a year later or two years later. Come to think of it, the junior pathways and development systems have undergone a heavy overhaul as well and the future of all of that is unclear with this strange new deal with Redcliffe Dolphins.

Regular readers will remember that I shared George's off-season speech, full of fucks and the classic line of "the power will be outstanding". Turns out there was no power and George is leading a club that doesn't appear to know what they are about or what they want to be. The club simply feels lost.

This is about Kearney, but it's not about Kearney. As the coach of the Warriors, Kearney didn't help me out as I tend to tap out when the Warriors consistently suck and rid myself of that negative energy. Kearney's Warriors weren't very good and I didn't enjoy writing about the Warriors outside of sporadic moments of footy pleasure.

Although, Kearney's tenure and this moment is far more a reflection of where the Warriors are at as a club. Straight up, I thought this kinda moment had come around 2017 when Kearney was hired and moves were made to start the winds of change. Here we are again and everyone involved at the Warriors, starting with the leadership would be wise to align their actions with their big talk. Otherwise, fans who have put up with endless amounts of bullshit start to find more interesting things to do and gravitate to more positive vibes.

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Peace and love.