Warriors Winning Ways Continue!

It was a funny kind of week in the NRL in terms of being able to pick winners with some pretty decent upsets taking place – who would have picked the off form Raiders to beat the Storm in Melbourne? Not me, that’s for sure. The really important news from the weekend is that the Warriors won (AGAIN!!!) and have well and truly cemented themselves in the top eight for now.  We are coming second in the overall in the club championship (Melbourne is ahead of us at present).

The boys return home to Mt Smart after a long road trip and have an awesome deal on tickets for families – a $40 Family pass (2 adults, 3 kids), it is available for four days only and tickets are only available in the South Stand. This great offer expires at 5pm on Thursday 19 May and will give you a saving of 55% on game day prices! So get in quick and support our boys.

I’ve been a bad blogger!

I had the best of intentions to keep ‘League Chick’ up to date this year but I am failing miserably! At present I am watching the Rabbitohs v Tigers game, it is just past half time and the Bunny’s are thumping the Tigers 27-0! The Tigers are so hot and cold this season, if I pick against them they win and if I think they will win they lose – go figure! To be honest with the Warriors playing the Bunny’s next weekend I am quite happy for them to have a win (maybe not such a convincing one)  so they aren’t so desperate next week when the Warriors face them at Mt Smart.

I am also very pleased to be able to blog that the Warriors have won five from their last six games and are sitting at eighth on the table and the U20’s are again doing very well, currently sitting at second in the Toyota Cup.

My little Warrior is keeping me very busy (in the best way – of course). He absolutely loves league, when he watches the Sunday afternoon games it is not uncommon for him to cry at the end of a game! When he is really upset and I turn on a game he stops and is instantly drawn in, I don’t know if it is the colours, or the familiarity of the sounds that he has been hearing since in-utero, whatever it is I find it incredibly amusing.

Max – my little Warrior, watching how the big boys play

Some preview shots from family photos we had done – maybe his love of league is in the blood after all!

If you want updates on Max the little Warrior you can follow his progress here at ‘The Fantastic Life of Max’. Hopefully I will be able to update this blog with some more good Warriors news soon! Go the Mighty Warriors against the Knights tomorrow!!!

There is also excitement in our household over the first State of Origin match of 2011 happening this coming Wednesday – Fingers crossed for another year of Maroon dominance!

Round 2 Review:

First and foremost, the Warriors are still winless! The boys went down to the West Tigers 20-12 at Leichart Oval last Saturday night, there were points during the game where it looked like we might take it but it was not to be. Again it was a case of too many errors and the defence not being tight enough when it counts (not to mention as usual being a little hard done by by the men in pink!). A highlight was watching Inu make his debut in Warriors colours, he had some amazing fancy footwork that resulted in points and for a second made me think that we might be okay without Manu for a few weeks.

However the Warriors aren’t alone being 0-2, the Rabbits and Titans are also winless and looking ahead to the week 3 matchups it is entirely possible that all 3 teams may end up 0-3 (fingers crossed for the Warriors though). It appeared week 2 was a week of upsets, after convincing wins in round 1, both Paramatta and Canberra were dealt crushing defeats. The biggest shock of the round though had to be the Dragons loss to the Sharks – the worst possible result for the Warriors who face the Dragons at Mt Smart this Sunday.

With my little Warrior to look after and my three blogs to maintain I haven’t joined the fantasy league competition this year but my Dad is off on a cruise and a trip through Europe so I am taking over his NRL picks in his office sweepstake for him. Dad did his picks for this week before he left yesterday but I am responsible for the next month – he has done really well the past two years so fingers crossed I don’t stuff it up for him. Last week we both struggled, he only got 3 and I got 4. Here are my picks for this week:

PAR v SOU = PAR
GCT v BRI = GCT
PEN v CRO = PEN
WES v CAN = WES
NZW v STIG = STG
BUL v SYD = SYD
MAN v NEW = NEW
COW v STO = STO

Warriors 2011 Season Opener

After a pretty successful pre-season, lots of media hype about the caliber of this years squad and a crowd of roughly 40,000 at Eden Park tonight, the Warriors came up short going down 24-18 to the Steve Kearny coached Paramatta Eels. There were too many mistakes and too many penalties given away, at half time we had made 100 extra tackles and our completion rate was dismal!

The boys mounted a second half come back and as seasoned fans who have seen it many times before Shane and I held out hope when the boys in black scored two tries in quick succession that we could scrape in with a win, at 18-24 with a good five minutes to go  there where moments where we really thought it could happen – but alas it was not to be. To rub salt into the wound it looks like “The Beast”, Manu Vatuvei will be out for the next 6-8 weeks with injury – although scans will need to be done on Monday to confirm this. On the opposite wing debutant  Glen Fisiiahi (a star of the Premiership winning 2010 U20’s side) showed us some glimpses of why Cleary choose to start him but made some silly mistakes and caved more than once under the pressure of the high ball, as did Lance Hohia. James Maloney gave away a stupid penalty when he took out Jarred Hayne with his shoulder and has ended up on report.

Personally, I’m not suprised by the loss – like many others I never agreed with moving the game to Eden Park. I was there for that unfortunate Kiwis game in November last year and the atmosphere was horrible, games like that (and tonight’s) attract a whole bunch of JCL’s (Johnny Come Lately’s) who behave like total idiots – case in point, the complete and utter losers who thought it was okay for them to yell and hoot during the minutes silence for those who lots their lives in the Christchurch quake. I wasn’t there tonight (with good reason, I have a month old little Warrior of my own – Max - at home to look after) so can’t comment on tonight’s atmosphere but I can’t wait to see league return home to Mt Smart (next home game is on 27/03 against the Dragons), hopefully we will make it along to a game or two (or three or four) with wee Max and he can experience the home of the faithful and what it’s like to win!

Introducing our “Wee Warrior” Max – in team colours at 11 hours old!

Next week the Warriors play another Saturday night game against the West Tigers at Leichardt Oval in Sydney – fingers crossed for a much improved performance!

Good News For NZ Rugby League

Today the Warriors signed Parramatta Eels players, Feleti Mateo and Krisnan Inu to three year deals. This is great news for the club, but the Warriors will need to sign a decent sized prop to take the ball up, if they want to improve their chances of playing football in September! In other signing news, the Warriors have also managed to sign Michael Luck to the end of the 2012 season. Luck consistently works hard and provides good leadership on the field, regardless of whether there is a C next to his name.

Last Friday night the Kiwis played the Kangaroos in the annual ANZAC test, although the boys went down 12-8 there was plenty to be happy about. Kearny put a young and relatively inexperienced team  on the field. Many people expected a 30 point plus blow out but the rain proved once again to be the great leveller and the boys in black put in a pretty gutsy defensive effort. I will look forward to seeing the Kiwis on home turf at the end of the year as part of the Four Nations tournament.

Because of the Kiwis game, the Warriors had a bye and banked two valuable competition points. Lets hope the rest has done them good and they are able to produce a solid effort at home against the Cowboys this weekend. This game should see the return of injured players, Mannering, Vatuvei and Seymor.

If it seems too good to be true...

It usually is! I wasn't to surprised to learn about the Melbourne Storm's breech of the NRL's salary cap, but I was a bit stunned in regards to the punishment that was handed down to them - not that it wasn't justly deserved. In fact the whole debacle has inspired me to get back on the blog for 2010.

I think everyone has had their suspicions about how they managed to keep such a talented pool of players there under the salary cap. My Dad (who can be incredibly vocal about this type of thing) has voiced his opinion on this a few times over the last couple of years. Our whole family was in Sydney for the 2007 Melbourne v Manly Grand Final and witnessed that amazing win from the Storm and were blown away with the way they played.

Shane and I after the Final

As a fan of the game you feel cheated to have looked at these guys in awe and I really do feel for the Storm fans. I hope that the Storm fans do stick by their team through the 2010 season as it would be a shame to see the franchise in Melbourne go under.

It will be interesting to see what team turns up on Sunday to face the Warriors (who aren't tracking to bad this year - and thanks to the Storm's fall from grace - are now back in the top 8). There are rumours to flying around that the Warriors may be facing an under 20's side, personally I believe that the Storms first grade team will turn up but I don't know if their heads will be in the game. Cameron Smith is an absolute sulk and is their captain and will set the mood for the team, so I think a lot of how the Storm will play will come down to how he decides to handle this.

As always I have my fingers crossed for the Warriors, I'm hoping that they have gotten over that disastrous effort they produced last weekend.

Ladies Knight

The Warriors played the Knights at Mt Smart on Friday night and female fans were treated to 'Ladies Night' as part of the NRLs 'Women in League'. It was a cold rainy night at Mt Smart but the Warriors held a team to nil at home for the second game in a row, downing the Knights 13-0. There were some notable performances, in particular Kevin Locke who ran 70m to score the final try of the match. Lance Hohia did well wearing number 6 using his head and his boot to land a drop goal, ensuring that even if the Knights were to cross that we would be more than a converted try ahead. Unfortunately it looks like Wade McKinnon is still missing his spark, there is no sign of the side step we have witnessed in the past or the electric pace that made him a fan favourite and a try scoring machine. In my opinion Stacey Jones has been a waste of valuable salary cap money.

In my fantasy league on nrl.com I'm now ranked 514 out of just over 69, 000. I've also been managing my school, the Alfriston College 1st XIII who have done incredibly well in their first year in the competition. Last week the boys defeated Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate 22-20, the win put them into the 1/4 finals where they will play St Pauls. Last weeks game was played on the Mt Smart no.2 as part of 'Warrior Wednesday', prior to the game the team was taken on a tour of the Warriors gym, changing rooms and received a chat from under 20s coach Tony Iro.

So go the Warriors - fingers crossed they come out of this bye a little better than the last and go AC!!!