The fairytale has turned grim. New Zealand players are listless and heartbroken and guilty and remorseful and lost. They blame themselves for the grief that has engulfed Stephen Kearney and his family. Emotional injuries like these are deeply wounding. They may be in no fit state to play Melbourne on Friday night.
Shakespeare suggested all losses are restored, and all sorrows end, but the bard has been more of your Phil Gould sort of guy, a five-year plan sort of guy, more focused on long-term recoveries than six-day turnarounds against merciless opposition.
The Warriors players’ shock and sadness and deep regret about their role in Kearney’s demise is palpable. They can do nothing to change it. Nothing can save his career. Those are the sorts of crippling sentiments that get into your blood and your bones and your head. They do not vanish overnight; not even by Friday night. Who can blame any of them for thinking … I just want to go home now. The fairytale has actually gone beyond grim — the career of the hero is dead.
“It’s been a huge shock and we’re still pretty upset by the news,” Warriors backrower Tohu Harris said in a Zoom call from somewhere down in the dumps. “I’m feeling for Mooks (Kearney) and his family. I feel, personally, that it wasn’t deserved, especially with the players and how we feel that we let him down.
“I think the majority of the squad has taken it particularly hard because the majority of the squad are here because of Mooks. He’s the one who gave me my first Test jersey. I’ve known him since early 2013. If he wasn’t in Auckland, me and my family, we don’t come here … In this situation, he’s been the one person that was holding this team together. We’re still in shock and left scrambling.”
Like jilted lovers going over the last conversations to work out where it all went wrong, Warriors players sat through a replay of the 40-12 loss to South Sydney that prompted club owner Mark Robinson, who was in Auckland, to dismiss Kearney, who was in Sydney, via a telephone call from chief executive Cameron George, who was also in Auckland.
“As players, we feel responsible for the result. It feels very harsh,” Harris said. “A lot of us have watched the game back and we saw how many opportunities we had that we didn’t finish … To have the decision made after the result we felt responsible for, we feel it’s really harsh. But there’s a lot of stuff we don’t know about and there’s guys that have to make those decisions. We just have to do our job.”
Warriors players were not asked about Kearney before the cut was made.
“Players understand that we are still employees,” Harris said.
“I understand that they don’t need to speak to me on decisions. It would be nice, because we’re in this situation. We’d be able to give them more information before they make certain decisions but again that’s not normal process. It’s a hard decision to process because they’re making those decisions outside of the bubble we’re in here.
“I feel like we could give them more current information of what it’s actually like being here. Mooks has been the one that’s holding the group together, getting us up every single week. The other coaches have been coaching while he’s been managing everyone, because there’s so many things going on and so many different things out of our control. Now that we’ve lost that person that’s doing that, we’ve got to scramble.”
The Warriors can hardly be expected to train the house down, which means they can hardly be expected to play the lights out against the Storm. Stand-in coach Todd Payten looks and sounds as rattled as the players after a brutal cut that appears to have left them in a bawling heap.
They have embarked on an incredibly challenging mission in Australia. They have sacrificed personal and family lives to rescue the NRL. Results have been patchy, though. If you ever need a reminder that sport is results-based, this is it. It is difficult to recall a more savage sacking. The heart says Kearney deserves to stay but the head, and the owner, says the Warriors need a total cleanout under an experienced old mentor like Gould or Shakespeare or more likely, Wayne Bennett.
George has been a class act in the last few days. He’s hiding from nothing. The call on Kearney has clearly not been his. To shoot him is to put a bullet in the messenger.
To the suggestion of the Warriors racking the cue for this year, George has told the Big Sports Breakfast on Sky Sports Radio: “I wouldn’t say the white flag is up by any way, shape or form … The boys will pad up this week and go for it.”
That they will. But they’ll be padding up after some distinctly dispirited net sessions during the week. If winning starts Monday, they’re hardly off to a flyer. They haven’t seen their families for more than two months. They have been one-in, all-in to ensure Project Apollo gets off the ground, but now they’ve lost their father figure. They’ve been spanked by Souths. They’re 13th on the ladder. They are here in the physical sense, and George says no player has asked for permission to return home. But their hearts are unlikely to be in it for a few days, weeks, months, and the head is nothing without the heart.
Living in a bubble since early May, it may be about to burst for the Warriors. If it hasn’t already.
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