Rugby League: NRL great Wendell Sailor predicts Warriors will miss playoffs

Adam Blair during a Warriors training session. Photosport

NRL great Wendell Sailor is predicting the playoff drought will continue for the New Zealand Warriors this season.

The Warriors haven't made the NRL playoffs since 2011, when they reached the grand final, and Sailor isn't expecting the side to make the top eight this year.

Sailor, who scored 510 points in 222 NRL games, told the Radio Sport Breakfast that they'd finish between ninth and eleventh on the NRL table.

"Every year they let me down," Sailor told Radio Sport.

"I looked at them when they brought in Roger Tuivasa-Shek and Issac Luke, wonderful young talent there but for some reason it just doesn't work. I said something last year and Stephen Kearney took offense to it – look I hope for New Zealand and I just hope for the league that the more the Warriors play in the finals, I think the better it is.

"I just don't trust the Warriors. A bit like their fans at the moment. Until they show me something I'm going to have them missing the eight. I'll have them in ninth."

The Warriors finished 13th last year and have seen the departure of five-eighth Kieran Foran as well as forwards Ryan Hoffman, Charlie Gubb, Jacob Lillyman, Ben Matulino and Bodene Thompson.

Listen to "Wendell Sailor: Warriors will miss the playoffs" on Spreaker.

They go into the new season with recruits Adam Blair, Tohu Harris, Blake Green, Agnatius Paasi and Leivaha Pulu and a boost of confidence after winning both pre-season games against the Storm and Titans.

Sailor said the hype often builds around the start of each Warriors' season but they don't deliver.

"New Zealand sometimes, a bit like the New South Wales Origin team, the media, we get so excited about what you see because you buy Issac Luke and Roger Tuivasa-Shek and all these guys and you have Shaun Johnson, you all get excited about making the finals," he said.

"But as you know it's an endurance race not a sprint. It's about that balance through the season. There's a bit of maturity in that Warriors team I hope now with the players coming through, they understand what it takes to make the playoffs."

The Warriors open the season against the Rabbitohs in Perth on March 10.