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Home / Sport / League

Chris Rattue's winners and losers: Heads must roll at disgraceful Warriors - starting with CEO Cameron George

Chris Rattue
By Chris Rattue
Sports Writer·NZ Herald·
9 May, 2022 04:00 AM6 mins to read

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Warriors CEO Cameron George. Photo / Photosport

Warriors CEO Cameron George. Photo / Photosport

OPINION:

WINNER: Rugby league

The Warriors' disgraceful effort against Cronulla belongs in a Hall of Shame.

Heads must roll and - unfortunately - the cull needs to start with CEO Cameron George.

I'm a huge fan of George, for his upbeat and approachable demeanour and the way he has kept the club going through its Covid-forced nomadic times.

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I really hate suggesting his time is up. But it is.

George had no pedigree in putting together a great NRL side - the Warriors are his proving ground on that score and, well, the proof is in this wobbly pudding.

League is such a small sport, and the NRL clubs are leanly staffed by world professional standards meaning CEOs are highly responsible for results.

It's time for a change. The club is in quick sand, and sinking. The Warriors needs a massive overhaul.

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Even most of the Warriors' wins this year have been unimpressive. But the last few weeks have been disastrous.

The humiliating hiding against Melbourne was bad enough, yet somehow the latest loss to Cronulla was even worse, a day of utter shame as Shaun Johnson and co capitulated.

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Addin Fonua-Blake reacts after the Sharks score. Photo / Photosport
Addin Fonua-Blake reacts after the Sharks score. Photo / Photosport

Losing to a team down to 12 men for most of the match, and down to 11 men for 10 minutes, is bad enough.

But they didn't just lose. They were actually thrashed by the Sharks, and after an initial little try flurry following Will Kennedy's dismissal couldn't even score another point.

The Warriors need a new CEO with proven success to turn the place around. It's also looking clear that coach Nathan Brown isn't up to the job.

The rescue attempt has to start at the very top this time.

Right - got that off the chest. So why do I count rugby league as a winner?

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Because the atmosphere at the Sharks' park was amazing.

Cronulla were propelled to a famous victory by wonderful supporters backing them in every tackle, and the game finished with the spectators singing like one of those amazing English sporting crowds.

It was stirring stuff, with a glorious red sky as the backdrop. That's what sport at a suburban ground should be all about.

Cronulla deserve a mighty congratulations.

LOSER: New Zealand sport

Blues signage and flags prior to kickoff at a largely empty Eden Park. Photo / Photosport
Blues signage and flags prior to kickoff at a largely empty Eden Park. Photo / Photosport

The idea that New Zealand is a fabulous sporting nation is a big fat lie on and off the field. Here is why.

• Super Rugby is an unmitigated disaster and the national sport is dying in many ways. The coverage on Sky is amateurish, childish. I don't think people even care about the All Blacks the way they used to. Rugby itself is almost unwatchable, sunk by stoppages and overbearing TMOs. Even the era of All Black dominance has gone - they are quickly becoming just another up-and-down team.

• The Warriors - the one big hope for proper professional sport - have been a crazy, useless mess for decades and domestic rugby league is like … (you fill in the gap).

• Football, the world game, has no domestic profile. The Phoenix are unloved and hopeless, the All Whites only play at odd overseas venues and times.

• The once-mighty basketball Breakers have lost their mojo.

• Sport in the country's major city has been dragged down because the main stadium is the wrong size, wrong shape, in the wrong place, and about 50 years out of date. The backup stadium at Mt Smart looks like a condemned squat.

• No one cares about domestic cricket.

• The great events of old - like a once-respected golf open and fascinating international athletics meets - have disappeared.

• Star-studded teams - such as the invitational football squads which came here decades ago - no longer visit.

• We've lost hosting rights to events, such as world speedway and darts. Believe it or not, in the distant past New Zealand also hosted things like the world cross-country championships.

• New Zealand pours a lot of money into Olympic-type sports which nobody really cares about most of the time.

• Netball's tiny international stage doesn't cut the mustard anymore.

• Even world MMA star Israel Adesanya abandoned the country.

One-off events overseas - such as the world cricket final, the All Whites' upcoming World Cup qualification match against Costa Rica, Joseph Parker et al - are left as sporadic high points to complement All Black tests and a few decent home cricket series. But even there, world cricket treats New Zealand with disdain and we're not even hosting Parker fights or the FIFA showdown this time.

Our sports administrators are drab and uninspiring, preferring to operate like faceless bureaucrats rather than the impresarios of old. Domestic sporting rivalries are absolutely dead.

It is a very sad and hopeless state of affairs and beyond repair, although thankfully there is loads of amazing overseas sport to watch on traditional TV and online.

WINNER: Steve Hodge's most lucrative mistake in sports history

England's Steve Hodge moves in to tackle Argentina's Diego Maradona. Photo / Getty Images
England's Steve Hodge moves in to tackle Argentina's Diego Maradona. Photo / Getty Images

The England footballer's failed backpass led to Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final, a game in which the late Argentinian wizard also scored the best goal ever seen in the world tournament when he dribbled past half the English team.

Hodge didn't allow himself to become overwhelmed by the defeat, thinking clearly enough to get hold of Maradona's shirt which he has just had auctioned for more than $13m.

"If I'd known what had happened I wouldn't have swapped my shirt with him," Hodge once said in reference to Maradona's famous handball score, the very goal which Hodge helped create and made the jersey he got hold of so valuable.

WINNER: Long shots

Rich Strike was a late replacement and at 80-1 odds for the famous Kentucky Derby. But horses don't suffer inferiority complexes, and Strike won the legendary American race. I sense a film coming up.

LOSER: The WBA

Ukrainian boxing legend Wladimir Klitschko was right: Russian Dmitry Bivol's WBA light heavyweight title shot against Mexican Canelo Alvarez should have been canned.

The world needs to unite and turn the screws on Russia at every opportunity to punish the invasion of Ukraine and dissuade the evil dictator Putin and his disgusting regime from continuing down this murderous path.

Who cares if a boxer feels harshly treated as collateral damage? There is a much bigger game in play. The decision looks even worse after Bivol's victory.

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