Time for big call - let Mannering sit out Britain tests

Simon Mannering clocked up 65 tackles against the Cowboys. Illustration / Rod Emmerson

A statistic from the Warriors' awful loss to the North Queensland Cowboys made particularly scary reading, and I'm not talking about the scoreboard believe it or not.

Simon Mannering, a Captain Braveheart if ever there was one, clocked up 65 tackles while Johnathan Thurston and mates ran amok. Scarier still, for a man doing so much work he was kind of anonymous.

In my view, Mannering has shouldered too much of a workload this year and desperately needs a rest. In other words, the Warriors and New Zealand Rugby League need to get their heads together and pull the Kiwis captain out of the four-game tour to Britain in November.

Relinquishing captaincy of a national side is not something to be suggested lightly, but there is a lot at stake for league right now. The Warriors are paramount to the game's hopes, and Mannering is essential to their cause. After two decades of mainly first grade hopelessness, the 2016 season is assuming great importance and Mannering needs to be in prime condition. Star playmakers Issac Luke and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck are on the way but what if this infuriating club stuffs up again? The long-term consequences could be disastrous and new chief executive Jim Doyle's dream of a league revolution - which is how he sold the Auckland move to Tuivasa-Sheck - will already be in tatters.

The tackling numbers might appear impressive, but Mannering looks tired. With other leading players sidelined for one reason or another he has been left holding the can and shirking just isn't in his makeup.

The Warriors ARE New Zealand league. The Kiwis provide a tasty sugar rush now and then but as the non-debate over the scrapping of the Anzac Test showed, there isn't a deep seated yearning for test league in this country. It comes and goes a bit like the just completed World Cup of netball, a fizzer considering the place the game supposedly holds in New Zealand hearts. Kiwis are happy to celebrate the victories but largely ignore everything else. Among the national sides only rugby, and maybe cricket to a lesser degree, stir longer debates.

The game rides on the Warriors because they play every week and should provide the dramas and storylines on which professional sport around the world is based. But 20 years of underachievement has chased the wider audience away. They did their normal trick this year, hitting a peak which promised quite a bit before going pop like an ITM Cup rugby ball.

With yet another Warriors season tailing off into despair, even ardent fans will give up making optimistic title predictions next year. But Tuivasa-Sheck and Luke can turn them into decent top eight contenders who can break the club's horrible habit of crashing when it counts. And Mannering, as good a professional as there is in the NRL, is pivotal to those hopes.

Whether he retains the club captaincy or not, and it's hard to see another contender, the Warriors need their inspirational lock in top mental and physical shape. Dragging him off to Britain, extending an exhausting season two months past the Warriors' final game, is not a good move. It's a time to see the bigger picture, and make a big call.

Auckland link

The headline sensation of the moment, NRL star turned American football rookie Jarryd Hayne, has an Auckland link. His dad Manoa Thompson played in the first Warriors lineup. Thompson was a centre who inaugural coach John Monie said fitted the bill of a player with the speed to go from one end to the other. The lanky Thompson, who had played for Souths and Wests, was not exactly memorable. He played a handful of games and zoomed off into the sunset which unfortunately hinted at life to come for the Warriors.