BOOM!

Yes that is the sound of the the Melbourne Storm imploding. Stripped of their 2007 and 2009 titles and basically disqualified from the 2010 season. These guys are screwed after systematically scheming to bypass the salary cap for years.

To cap it off we will be playing them this weekend. Unscripted drama. It surely cannot hurt the Warriors chances.

In other news Clinton "toops" Toopi has made the starting lineup for the Titans. But sorry toops you are way overshadowed by the most explosive penalty ever handed out for salary cap rorts.

Bye bye Storm your franchise is finished for the foreseeable future.

And if all that is not enough shocking news for you - Eric Watson has broken his back whilst ski-ing in Switzerland. He is apparently alive, not paralysed and should make a full recovery.

Injury crisis continues - Locke dropped

Well this injury crisis is like a cloud of volcanic ash that just
keeps on hanging around. When will we ever get to start Price,
Mannering, Vatuvei and Seymour at the same time. Luck and Ropati are
back but thats cold comfort as we head towards the storm. Locke has
been dropped, and lets face it he has been pretty poor the last few
weeks. At a minimum we need to be tough in defence. Its the only way
this team can survive right now.

Abysmal, ghastly, dire and embarrassing

Welcome back to the future. Penrith 40, Warriors 12 - at Mt Smart. The Yo yo Warriors are back in town. How bad was that performance? Well lets put it this way, Penrith did not even have to play that well to be up 22 nil inside of 20 minutes.

Too much dropped ball. Too many stupid mistakes. Too many poor last play options. Too many missed tackles. Not enough pride. You can't pin this on one player. This is the pent up result of all the top stars having been out for so many weeks. Its just not good enough. We need to some leadership back in the side asap.

Second half there were hints of a fight back but that got snuffed out pretty quickly.

The only good thing that happened today was Man U beating City to crawl back into the premier league title race after Chelsea's surprise loss to Spurs.

Falling behind in a great season

Hey guys sorry I have been falling behind on the blog. We just moved house and the broadband only just got activated after almost 3 weeks! A real pain but at least now I am back online and MySky is in effect so its all good from here on in.

And how good is this Warriors season shaping up to be. I note the disappointing loss to Manly - which I attended at Mt Smart. Good fun and really tight game. An arm wrestle. Lack of strike power was notable in the absence of Vatuvei. Tupou showed promise but he is not the finished article just yet. I sat in the Western stand and it was pretty cool but I think I like the Eastern stand better. Let me know your thoughts.

As for the game vs the Dogs - my goodness the NRL and the Warriors in particular deliver an entertaining product sometimes. What more could you ask for than tied at 24 in the final minute with a miracle try off a Lewis Brown kick to win the game for the boys. Unbelievable. Lewis Brown is a star in the making - and he is a great centre/2nd rower in the Mannering mould. And despite the no doubt excessive attention after a few hot performances - Maloney is starting to make me believe he is the real deal.

This team has a lot of potential, especially when you start considering the injury report. Its almost a whole team worth of players waiting in the wings. Cleary may end up with some real selection battles if these guys all get fit. For example when Seymour is fit how will he restructure a halves combo that seems quite effective at present? Moon looks most likely to be dropped but he shows some real signs of improvement as well. But what about the Hiho/WadeMac scenario. you can't drop Hohaia on current form so how do we put this jigsaw together if Seymour is good enough to start? Depth is a good thing so lets hope all these guys can be fit soon.

Tupou will start in place of Vatuvei this Sunday vs the Panthers at Mt Smart - he is a good prospect, but he is a long way from being the beast.

Injury Report

Steve Price - heel infection - ever? round 7?

Mannering - hamstring - round 7 maybe?

Vatuvei - hamstring - round 7 maybe?

Ropati - hamstring - round 7 maybe?

Seymour - broken thumb - round 9?

Michael Luck - broken right index finger - round 6

Henderson - knee injury - made it to the bench in round 5 and will be on the bench again in rnd 6

Sione Louisi - leg infection

Isaac John - foot

Shawn Johnson - ankle

Elijah Taylor - serious knee injury - maybe out till 2011

I also think at least one player - Locke - is carrying injuries that have not been openly admitted. In a recent interview he said that he was having problems with his shoulder rotator cuff - such that he had difficulty raising his arms to catch the high ball. I also wonder if he doesn't have a knee injury as well. His form has not been that great so far but he has alot of talent if he is fully fit.

This is Clearys team for the match v the Panthers this weekend - interesting to see him start WadeMac at fullback with Hohaia in the halves pushing Moon to the centres:

1 WADE McKINNON
2 KEVIN LOCKE
3 BRENT TATE (c)
4 JOEL MOON
5 BILL TUPOU
6 LANCE HOHAIA
7 JAMES MALONEY
8 SAM RAPIRA
9 AARON HEREMAIA
10 JESSE ROYAL
11 LEWIS BROWN
12 BEN MATULINO
13 JACOB LILLYMAN
Interchange:
14 IAN HENDERSON
15 JEREMY LATIMORE
16 RUSSELL PACKER
17 UKUMA TA’AI