Rugby League: Warriors' cast-offs heading for UK

By Peter Jessup

Unwanted Auckland Warriors Sean Hoppe and Gene Ngamu will leave the club and look likely to play in England.

The struggling Huddersfield club has reached agreement to take Ngamu, with coach Malcolm Reilly convincing the standoff that he and Huddersfield have a future as they try to buy their way up the Euro Super League ladder.

Huddersfield and Auckland have yet to agree on the amount of "carry" the Warriors will have left from Ngamu's $300,000-a-year deal, but were close to settlement yesterday.

Huddersfield want Ngamu for the remainder of his two-year deal with Auckland and they want him quickly, with the likelihood he could be playing in England in a fortnight.

The former Northcote and Manly player, aged 25, had 73 games for the Warriors, scoring 11 tries and a total of 283 points. He has had 20 tests and played at the 1995 World Cup.

Hoppe, 28, played 85 games from 1995 on, joining after experience at Canberra and Norths, and is the club's top tryscorer with 44 touchdowns for 176 points. He's had 31 tests and was also at the '95 World Cup.

Both are confidence players who have struggled with their self-belief. Ngamu has at times dazzled opposition defences but too often went from the mercurial to the macabre.

Bad performances were reflected by a lack of tryscoring opportunity out wider.

Graham worked on Ngamu's defence and his penchant for throwing hospital passes before John Simon came on board, but the former Parramatta player's success spelled the end for the local.

Hoppe was brilliant in his time with Canberra and came with a big reputation but has largely failed to deliver the same firepower for the Warriors.

He lost speed after bulking up under John Monie's weights-oriented regime and hasn't recovered it; when stand-in fullback Carl Doherty made a 60m break against Melbourne and flipped the ball inside to his winger the try was on but Hoppe was run down while looking over his shoulder in what now looks like having been a telling moment.

Hoppe, off contract at the end of the year, has been told he can go early if he finds another club. The Warriors yesterday made play of the fact he'd been a great asset to the club and presented his release as a favour in return, thus allowing him to settle his future. Nothing definite was in the wind but there was interest from a variety of English clubs.

Prop Brady Malam's future remains in the balance, dependent on what Aussies the club signs. He and utility Shane Endacott have been given permission to look elsewhere. Also looking increasingly on the outer are Bryan Henare and Tony Tatupu.

On the other side of the ledger, wing Lee Oudenryn appears to have played his way into another deal though nothing has yet been offered, and centre Peter Lewis looks to have secured another season with solid efforts in the troublesome centre berth.

Efforts continue to sign two centres and a second-rower as well as utility players who will increase competition for premiership spots.

The club is confident it has one high-profile back utility in the bag and negotiations continue positively with last weekend's three-try Knight Mark Hughes.

The North Queensland Cowboys will send out a totally new-look team to take on the Warriors at Townsville on Saturday night, all the squad yesterday either shaving their hair, bleaching or dyeing it as a sponsorship arrangement to raise funds for cancer kids.

Coach Tim Sheens was hedging on his team, claiming the number of injuries made a definite call impossible.

Damien Smith (hamstring), Noa Nadruku (eye), Paul Bowman (shoulder), John Lomax (Achilles) and John Buttigieg (leg) are all on the casualty list, with the first three more likely than the latter two to go to the bench.

North Queensland Cowboys: Damien Smith, Noa Nadruku, Geoff Bell, Josh Hannay, Brian Jellick, Scott Prince, Noel Goldthorpe (c), Peter Jones, Mark Shipway, Kyle Warren, Brett Hetherington, Brett Boyd, Paul Pensini; interchange John Doyle (three to be added).