Sunday, June 11, 2006

Warriors 22 v Roosters 12


Hey I am delighted to see that the Warriors have managed to pull out a win against the Roosters. Nice work boys - Vatuvei with a storming performance. Webb asserting himself again as the player the Warriors must re-sign as soon as possible.

Even the Sydney Morning Herald was borderline positive in its recap of the match pointing out that but for the salary cap debacle and points deduction the Warriors would be sitting just outside the top eight. Another good point that those eagle eyed fans out there may already have noted is that the Warriors have a positive for and against differential - something they share with only the eight top teams.

I am of a mind to suggest that if the Warriors could just string together a few wins the end of the season could get really interesting - dare I say it and invoke 1995 - every game from now on is a grand final! If we estimate the Warriors need at least 28 points to make the playoffs, they are currrently on 8 points and will get two from their round 20 bye, so need to win at least nine further games out of the remaining eleven to stand any chance. They are due to play all of the top five teams so if we accept they can't win all of these then they will need to win three of these five games and all the others to qualify.

Remaining games (and current placing of opponents) are:
18/6 - Round 15 - Knights (3rd) - Home
25/6 - Round 16 - Rabbitohs (15th) - Away
30/6 - Round 17 - Panthers (12th) - Home
7/7 - Round 18 - Bulldogs (5th) - Away
14/7 - Round 19 - Eels (14th) - Home
21/7 - Round 20 - Bye
28/7 - Round 21 - Panthers (12th) - Away
4/8 - Round 22 - Sharks (4th) - Home
11/8 - Round 23 - Cowboys (8th) - Home
18/8 - Round 24 - Storm (1st) - Away
25/8 - Round 25 - Roosters (11th) - Home
1/9 - Round 26 - Broncoes (2nd) - Away

I also see that Misi Taulapapa has signed up with a development team for the Cowboys. This article is perhaps most notable for the admissions as to the nature of the incident that saw Misi dumped by the Warriors. Apparently a trip to the movies on a Friday night turned into an all night boozer bender with Misi appearing at training on Saturday a little worse for wear.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't quite believe that the Warriors would dump a player solely because of a few alcohol related disciplinary reasons if management really thought he was that good. As Misi pointed out - other players have done a lot more/worse and haven't been sacked. Presumably simply because those players were more important to the team.

I can't help but feel that if Cleary genuinely thought Misi had potential he would have pulled out all stops to help him with his discipline problem. Surely there must be a lot of cases where a player has achieved inspite of their deamons and subsequently gone on to greater and greater things once their deamons have been brought under control.

I really can't see the warriors have any chance of stringing together 9 wins out of the last 11. As far as the top 5 teams go, 3 of those games are away. Although, how many did Newcastle wine last year out of their last 11 regular season?

Anonymous said...

Positive - hoping to see some more wins - looks like a big ask to win 9 of 11?????