NRL: Warriors coach Andrew Webster to take new approach in dealing with slow starts

Warriors head coach Andrew Webster says his side still has plenty to work on. Photo / Photosport

Andrew Webster is done talking about starts.

Through five rounds of the NRL season, his Warriors side hold a 4-1 record - the club’s best record through five rounds since they won five straight to begin their 2018 campaign.

But while there is a lot for Warriors fans to be optimistic about, their inability to show up from the opening whistle has been problematic.

In each of their five games, the Warriors have conceded the first try inside 10 minutes. That trend of starting slow stretched out last weekend as they found themselves trailing the Cronulla Sharks 20-0 in as many minutes, only to pull off a remarkable comeback win.

In the opening 10 minutes, the Warriors have been outscored 38-6 across their five matches. Outside of that period, however, they have been able to put the brakes on their opposition. From the 10-minute mark to the end of the match, the Warriors have scored twice as many points as their opponents - 100-50.

Unsurprisingly, the starts are an area of the game Webster has often found himself addressing this year and, ahead of tonight’s clash against the Newcastle Knights, he said he had decided to take a different approach to the issue.

“Mate, I’m not talking about starts anymore,” Webster said.

“I think I’m putting too much emphasis on it. I think I’m putting it at the front of their heads to the point where you guys ask about it and that’s all they want to talk about. So, I think that’s on me a little bit probably.

“I don’t want to walk past things. I want to address it. We’ve addressed it since the Tigers trial; we’ve practiced scenarios, we’ve done everything and talk about it every week.

“So, in our meetings this week, we’re going to focus more around our individual performance for 80 minutes. That’s from the first whistle to the last whistle. We certainly know how to do it for the last part of the whistle. We’ve got to do it for 80 minutes rather than focusing on parts of the game.”

Whether Webster wants to discuss it, the starts will remain a point of conversation until they come right. The next opportunity for that to happen comes against the Knights, a rematch of their round one clash which saw the Warriors finish strong to claim the win.

In that match, the Knights scored in the first minute when second rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon got one-on-one with Shaun Johnson and blew through the inside shoulder of the Warriors half with ease. Johnson has since been strong defensively and has averaged 21 made tackles across the last four games.

Both sides arrive at this weekend’s clash with decent form behind them. The Warriors have won four of their first five, and although the Knights have a 2-2-1 record, their high-scoring draw against Manly last time out will give them plenty of confidence in hosting the Warriors.

While the two sides met in the opening round, Webster said it wasn’t a match he could use as a test of how far his side had come since that first meeting.

“We’re both two different teams. People argue that doesn’t make sense, and I can probably see where they’re coming from – it sounds like a silly statement, doesn’t it? - but I feel like, we’re rolling into round six and what we were doing in round one, we’re not doing now. There are different things we’re doing.

“Newcastle will have the exact same thing where they’re fixing things or maybe other things have developed that they want to work on. It’s just a moving part in what you’re happy with and what you’re not each week. You’ve got to worry about yourself and you’ve got to worry about the enemy. We’ll do both this week.”