Cleary's Last Chance

The Warriors have been giving their fans the usual rollercoaster season that many are used to in their 2011 NRL season thus far.

Yet much flack has been coming from the media of late in regards to Ivan Cleary and his abilities to coach such a wildfire team as the Warriors. It is nothing new that the Warriors are very unpredictable, punters have made and lost fortunes on them, I myself have a thin head of hair- I will thank Ivan for this.

I was on the phone just a few moments ago to a close friend whom lives in Northern Queensland now. He says over the weeks that some NRL games, many of them Warriors games, are not shown on TV in Australia, which would obviously frustrate the many ex-pats over the ditch.

The obvious bias in Australia towards the only Kiwi team in the competition is frustration at its best. Referee's seem to do the craziest things when the Warriors are in sticky situations.

Tony Archer

My grandfather was on the NZRLU board back in the day, he was also a selector for the Kiwi's along with other things. But one of his best achievements was that he was a first-class referee based at the old Balmain Tigers club. When New Zealand players/ teams were involved it was something that opened the eyes of the referee's association. So I recently phoned up Errol, my grandfather, to ask him for a quote as to what was done with NZ teams and players in the Australian competition. He told me to think back to conversations we had about this exact thing when he said "We were all told to be bias against the Kiwi blokes, there is absolutely no doubt about that. I am not sure if this is a practice that continues today in the NRL, however when I watch games I see it happening all the time."

This is something that disgusts me. And as the Warriors line up against competition-power-cheaters the Melbourne Storm on Monday night on Melbourne's home turf at AAMI Park, this is something I will be looking at to keep Cleary's neck off the chopping block. The Warriors need to hold up impenetrable defense otherwise the Storm will easily put 13+ on them.

"I had no idea..."

The team list is something that the Warriors have had trouble with. Injuries and a coach that has really no idea what he is doing about the selections of his starting squad. In the last round, the Warriors were fined $1000AUD for changing the lineup at the last second- or that is how the NRL saw it. Jeremy Latimore was not supposed to be on the run-on team list, however he took the pitch instead of Russell Packer in their fixture against the Manly Sea Eagles over the weekend.

In reply, Cleary said "I had no idea why Russell was on the team list"..

Not only is this guy a poor coach, he is a total twit as well.

Bain's Prediction: Melbourne by 1-12 (unfortunately, but we can all dream of a Warriors win!)