KEY POINTS:
It might not have been the season they'd hoped for so far but the Warriors can at least point to a dramatic improvement in one area _ the production and promotion of home-grown talent.
The successful introduction to first grade of Sonny Fai, Ben Matulino and Malo Solomona has been a standout feature of a mid-season revival that will be sorely tested by the reigning premiers tomorrow.
The club's three-match winning run might have breathed life into a season fast running out of oxygen, but it is the ease with which those youngsters have adapted to the big time that suggests better times might lay ahead.
Once a club that could proudly point to producing the likes of Stacey Jones, Joe Vagana and Ali Lauitiiti, the Warriors' recent efforts have been built largely on the efforts of an ever-expanding Aussie brigade.
High-priced, high-quality imports such as Steve Price and Brent Tate will always be needed, but they should be the icing on a largely home-grown cake.
It is something the Warriors have recognised, with club management often stating their desire to become a development club.
The long-awaited appearance of Fai and the more surprising success of Matulino and Solomona suggests those words have been backed by deeds.
"We said two years ago we wanted to be a development club," said John Hart, the club's executive director of football.
"We will always have to bring Australians in because it is an Australasian competition. But the more youth we can promote from within New Zealand [the better]. That is our challenge."
If Hart and the Warriors need any more convincing they are on the right track they need look no further than the visiting Storm.
The Melbourne club's domination hasn't been built on raiding talent, but on scouting and developing it. Superstars Greg Inglis, Israel Folau and Billy Slater all progressed through the Storm's feeder clubs. The man who snatched them from under the noses of Queensland's NRL clubs, and also successfully scoured New Zealand's ranks for the likes of Adam Blair, Sika Manu and Sam Tagataese was super scout Peter O'Sullivan.
"It was nigh-on impossible at the start," he said of the early days at the Storm. "No one wanted to come and play for us. We weren't a glamour club, we were having poor results at the NRL level and we didn't have a high-profile coach. So it was very difficult. You had to get in first and back your judgment."
That is something the Warriors, by their own admission, haven't done well. A certain Sonny Bill Williams being rejected and ushered off shore was the nadir.
The careful nurturing of Fai and the ongoing stocking of the club's junior ranks suggests that is changing.
"We've got over 70 players on our books now and 45 of those would be kids," Hart said.
The establishment of the Under-20s competition had provided a crucial pathway for those youth players, he said.
O'Sullivan, now with the Roosters, said the Warriors' first priority should be retaining this country's best players.
The demise of the national junior age grade championships meant that might not be easy, he said.
"If New Zealand had the 16s and 18s followed by a national 20s competition it would be a beautiful stepping ground and drawing resource. I don't know what it costs them to run that Premier League team [the Auckland Vulcans] but if it was me I'd be putting those resources into the 16s and 18s and just letting those other blokes play in the Fox Memorial. To me the money should be spent on the elite junior competitions and keeping the kids there."
The most vexing challenge facing the Warriors, the production of quality local halves and hookers, was something that stumped even O'Sullivan.
"I haven't found them if they are there. Maybe they are in rugby, I don't know."
The closest he got was Piri Weepu, who he said had been close to signing with the Storm before being scooped up by the New Zealand Rugby Union.
It's something that Hart, too, admits is a struggle.
Says Hart: "It is hard for these young guys sometimes. They think they are ready, they are excited and they want to play. But there is a lot of the mental side of the game that they have got to understand.
"A lot of them, particularly the younger Polynesian boys, have grown very early and have dominated their age groups but they haven't really learned the game. With the process we have here and the structures we have in place they learn to play the game.
"There are only so many superstars but we have got some very talented young players in our under-20s right now who will carry on and be really good players for the Warriors."
