NZ Warriors assistant coach Stacey Jones admits off-field distractions were a major contributor to a disappointing NRL campaign that saw them slump to 13th this season, well short of playoff contention.
The Auckland club seemed on the verge of a bright future under new head coach Andrew Webster, but fell to nine wins, 14 losses and a draw to finish five points short of the top eight, after reaching the preliminary final last season.
Jones, who is about to take the reins of the national team for their defence of the Pacific Championship crown, told Newstalk ZB that not all the challenges came between the lines.
"I can’t go into too many details, but there were players having problems away from the game and probably not in the right headspace," he conceded.
"It certainly wasn’t complacency, because that was one big thing that we spoke about coming into the season — teams will come after us now and we’ve got to be ready. For me, we just weren’t consistent enough.
"Last year, there were tight games and we’d win them, but this year, the tight games we lost. In a nutshell, that was it."
Front-rower Addin Fonua-Blake began the season knowing he would leave at the end, after requesting an early contract release to return to Sydney. Midway through the season, it became obvious fan favourite Jazz Tevaga would not have his contract extended past this season, while oft-injured veteran Shaun Johnson confirmed his imminent retirement.
Forwards Mitch Barnett and Kurt Capewell were rewarded for their form with State of Origin call-ups, taking them away from the Warriors for game build-ups.
The Warriors lost seven games by six points or less, plus a rare draw against Manly Sea Eagles, representing a loss of 15 competition points. No other club featured in that many close games, either this season or last.
That was also a club record for nail-biting defeats in a season.
Perhaps the biggest factor was injury.
'Body told him it was enough'
"Last year, I thought we put out a pretty similar team just about every week — halves combinations, edge combinations," Jones told Newstalk ZB. "We just got hurt too many times when we were chopping and changing, and we couldn’t get any consistency.
“Unfortunately for Shaun, he had an Achilles problem that he got in the preseason and couldn’t quite shake off. When the injury came, and the pressure he was under and the pressure he puts on himself to perform, his body told him it was enough."
Warriors captain Tohu Harris had another injury-plagued season that ended early after wrist surgery. Half Luke Metcalfe broke a leg early and only returned for the final two weeks, while centre Rocco Berry was another to miss most of the campaign with a shoulder problem.
Half Te Maire Martin filled in bravely for Johnson during his absence, but battled a neck injury throughout, and by the time his teammate returned, Martin's season was also over.
Jones also highlighted a telling defensive statistic that goes some way to illustrating the falloff in performance. Last season, opponents needed an average of 21 tackles in the 20-metre 'red zone' before scoring, but this year that fell to just nine, a decline from second best in the competition to second worst.
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