July 28, 2026 • 11 mins
The Warriors hit another stumble last weekend, losing to the Bulldogs 18-6 in a game where they didn't really fire a shot.
That loss saw them drop out of the top 2 on the NRL ladder for the first time in 15 rounds.
Tonight their team was named for their clash this weekend against the Titans and there has only been one change to the starting side - Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad coming in for the injured Taine Tuaupiki.
Matthew Elliott is a former Warriors coach, he joined D'Arcy to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'd be Warriors had Well, they had a bit of
a skid, didn't they last weekend? Was it a skid? Now?
It wasn't a complete wreckage. They had a skid. They
lost the Bulldogs eighteen six. They didn't really fire a shot.
They did, like was five minutes to go, but it
was kind of too late by then. They dropped out
of the top two on the ladder the National Rugby
League first time fifteen rounds. Tonight, their team was named
(00:34):
for the Class this weekend against the Titans, only one
change to the starting side, Charns nickel Clok Start coming
in for the injurtainment to a peaky So should there
be more changes? Considering a man by the name of
Luke Metcalf who's been waiting in the wings and warming
the bench for I don't know how long. Now it's
(00:56):
a permanent fixture out there, isn't he. Let's talk about
that with the man who knows a little more about
the fine art of rugby league than I do. His
name is Matthew Elliott, former Warriors coach. Whether it's now
good evening at you.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
How I am made us could always could do. I
have a yarm. So I'm looking forward to this chart.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Great to have you on. It's a very interesting stage
in the Warriors season. Front runners for such a long time,
they've had a wee bit of a skid. I think
that's the best way to describe it. My question to
you from here what has to change in what they're
doing in order to right their ship again? Indeed, if
(01:33):
it is that far off course, I'm being a knee
jerkist here, but I can't help myself, right.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, look, I would, I would. I'm sort of a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
The opposite is that every season you're going to have
some periods of challenge, right and when you look at
the amount of injuries they've had to keep players, you
can't expect continuity not to be impacted, you know, when
they haven't been.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Ordinary players.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You know, when you I think Jackson Ford, I don't
know how much how long before Jack goes back in
the team. But Darlin's been in JD. You've had camp here, Prairie,
You've had you skip up. It's it's been a it's
been a challenging time just to get some rhythm.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And you know, this isn't in any industry.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
If you're working in radio and your tech was off
seek one day, but they get a brilliant tech in
who's fantastic, and your producers just back from you know,
six months and you'll leave or something.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
You know that that kind of ulity has an impact because.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
There's a lot that goes on in high performance industries
that it's nonverbal. You you actually hang on I can
see decla needs that without even going.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
To hey, mate, you need a hand with that.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
So I just think that the worry is I don't
think their forms terrible. I just think that they just
don't have the flow that they had earlier on in
the season because the amount of injuries they've had.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
What about the nature of the season, it's been very
it's been stutter steps with the excessive amount of buyers,
all in a very concentrated period of time. Is the
origin era as well, So you've been home and away,
you've had buy the breaking a bye. That can't help
with rhythm and setting a team up either.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
But what you've got to do when you're in a
coaching position specifically, is you've got to create the environment
where that's helpful. All right, We've got some opportunity here
to bud some young players. Look, we've got to we
need to build our energy during these by periods so
that at the end back end of the season we're
building a season here. It's not about just when next
(03:42):
week we're going to be playing our best footy when
we hit the semifinals. So Andrew Webster strikes me. I
don't know him very well, but strikes me as a
very astute person and understands how to create the right
environment for people to perform at their best. And that's
the real responsibility what you've just shared there for the
coach and the staff to make sure the players aren't
(04:05):
distracted by things like that.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
They're actually elevated by it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
They're elevated by a change in form or change in rhythm.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, change in rhythm.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Definitely when their buyers coming in and they might have
had a couple of their best players out, this is
an opportunity for people to.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Come in and show show their value.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Like I think Penrith is probably the best example of that.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
During how I don't know how many games they've.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Won when they've had their origin players out, but it's
quite a few, and then there's just putting a positive
framework around all of it. The other thing is you
can't play great all year in the NRL.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It wouldn't be an elite competition.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
If it was just easy to play your best forty,
particularly when you've lost some of your best players. So
you've got to actually understand that, but do all you
possibly can to have all those you know, those bricks
areligning towards the back end of the season when.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You're coaching and you're in a situation where you've lost
quality players. And this happened constant in the NRL. This
is not unusual. These coaches are always juggling with best
players and out part of your remit is to make
sure you've got guys to fold into positions when they're there,
which is what Andrew web has been talking about all year.
(05:23):
Next man up. So when that doesn't quite click, where
does that come from?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well for me, that it has clicked for them, I
would think last week was probably closest to their most
disappointing performance because they just didn't come out of the
blox at all.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
But you know, look, sometimes in the NRL, you can.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Play your best foot and lose because the opposition played
better than you, and that you've just got to sometimes
learn from that rather than work out what are we
done wrong here? And I don't think the Warriors are
doing too much wrong. My eyes don't work work quite
well these days. So you know, I've been watching them
play and I feel like they're not far off their
best footing. There's just a few nuances that sometimes times,
(06:07):
you know, when you get those key players back, can
make a huge difference. I mean, probably if I was
being microanalyzing, I still think that, you know, Harris Devina
and Tomorrow Martin that there's some little things in their
their spine that.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
They really need to hone in onto.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
And you know, when they don't have their best back
rollers on the outside of them, their performance dips a
long way. Well, you know, they need to bring a
bit of their own running game. And I guess that's
what Luke Metcalfe was able to do, was when his
back row wasn't running that line or he didn't have
that shape around him, he was able to burn the
opposition or challenge the opposition on his own.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I believe they.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Know both those guys can they just sometimes need to
shift their attention away from just playing to the team
system and challenging the opposition as individuals.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Do you think they have a license to do that?
I mean, you can't climb into the mind of Webster.
Would he like them to stick with the routine that
they've got or maybe say, hell, look if you can
see some do it because they've both got a bit
of toe.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Well, I'll say this, I'm making a complete assumption here,
but my short answer to that will be yes, they've
got they've got permission to do that. It's sometimes it's
not just disappointing your coach. Sometimes when you don't play
the structure, you've got a whole lot of players moving
around you. So you've got to get the balance of
that right. And at the moment, that's just one little bits.
(07:31):
They're not way off, they're not playing bad. They just
need to bring a bit of individual threat to what
they're doing so that when the defensive line isn't just assuming.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
That they're going to make a play, that.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
They've also got to prepare themselves for them carrying the
ball as well, because, as you say, they can be
a real threat carrying the ball.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
They're just not doing it as much as they should
in my belief.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Temptation from fans out there, from media, but pliny not
from the coach anyway, to stick Luke Metcalf straight meck
in the thick of it. He's been us sifting around
the exterior for quite some nami. He's on the interchange bench,
but they talk to us about the idea about bringing
a guy like that back into the side again for
the out and out pace that he's got and what
(08:18):
he can offer. Is that positive or is it disruptive
to the team considering he is probably going away.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Well, it doesn't matter if he's going away.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
First of all, there's players going away from every club
every year, so that's just a reality that you have to.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Deal with at this level.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Again, I think that Andrew Webs is a very very
astute coach and he has his clear reasoning for doing that,
because what I would say in the question, when I
look at a picky out of the team, who is,
oh my goodness, bag's not coaching against him because you
just don't know what he's going to do, you do
(08:58):
lose some unpredictability. And I think Luke Medcalf would be
someone that you could bring in off the bench, like
I know he's named at eighteen, but yeah, i'd certainly
be looking at or exploring how.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Do you get him back in the team.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
The other little thing about this that I don't know
is obviously when you come back from ACLS, a lot
of players can come back and it doesn't impact their form.
For some other players, and where you and I both
know about overcoming the injuries, for some other players, it
takes a little longer to get back that explosive speed
that they had. It's probably sometimes doesn't take twelve months,
(09:33):
it takes eighteen months to two years, So.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
You'd be warning against any form of knee reaction. They've
had a wee bit of a skid, but it's genuinely
going in the right direction. They've got a very they've
got quite a difficult last six matches coming up, a
lot of teams in that top eight they've got to
play to try and secure their place at the top.
But don't change anything, just carry on where you're going.
(09:57):
Minor tweaks attitudinal things, but they've got the players out
there that they need. They've got the idea of the attitude.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Well, using using my perspective of it, I think they
do I don't believe their form is terrible. It certainly
can be better and probably, as I said last weekend
against the Bulldogs, it was probably the most disappointing I've
seen them play in a little while. But yeah, I
don't and they've got some fairly handy players coming back
into the team. Obviously they need to keep everyone fit
(10:26):
and healthy. But this is the perfect you know, Craig
Bellamy's done.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
It for years.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Trent Robinson does this all the time. He builds a season.
He doesn't want them play in their best footy in
the middle of the year. He wants them growing towards
their best footy at the back end of the year.
And that's you know, if you get to a point
where there's no improvement in you and you've got ten
rounds to go.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
What happens. There's only one way to go right, and
that's backwards.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So smart coaches, and I'm counting Andrew Webster as that
they build seasons, and obviously it will become easier to
build when you get some of those injured players back
and some of the players that.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Have just returned the team.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
You get a few more minutes under their belt and
a bit more playtimed and feeling at ease in the
structures and the systems that they're playing with.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Be at ease.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It's okay. Don't try and turn it all around right here,
right now. You don't have to just keep going the
direction you're going.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
In well, particularly when you've got a smart coach and
when you've got so many quality players in your team,
you just got it.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
What's this word called trust?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
You've got to trust yourself and you've got to trust
each other.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And on that, we thank you very much for your time.
Good on you, Matthew Elliott.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
You're welcome. Made have a good one.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
For more from Sports Talk, listen Lived and News Talks.
There'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'd be Warriors had Well, they had a bit of
a skid, didn't they last weekend? Was it a skid? Now?
It wasn't a complete wreckage. They had a skid. They
lost the Bulldogs eighteen six. They didn't really fire a shot.
They did, like was five minutes to go, but it
was kind of too late by then. They dropped out
of the top two on the ladder the National Rugby
League first time fifteen rounds. Tonight, their team was named
(00:34):
for the Class this weekend against the Titans, only one
change to the starting side, Charns nickel Clok Start coming
in for the injurtainment to a peaky So should there
be more changes? Considering a man by the name of
Luke Metcalf who's been waiting in the wings and warming
the bench for I don't know how long. Now it's
(00:56):
a permanent fixture out there, isn't he. Let's talk about
that with the man who knows a little more about
the fine art of rugby league than I do. His
name is Matthew Elliott, former Warriors coach. Whether it's now
good evening at you.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
How I am made us could always could do. I
have a yarm. So I'm looking forward to this chart.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Great to have you on. It's a very interesting stage
in the Warriors season. Front runners for such a long time,
they've had a wee bit of a skid. I think
that's the best way to describe it. My question to
you from here what has to change in what they're
doing in order to right their ship again? Indeed, if
(01:33):
it is that far off course, I'm being a knee
jerkist here, but I can't help myself, right.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, look, I would, I would. I'm sort of a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
The opposite is that every season you're going to have
some periods of challenge, right and when you look at
the amount of injuries they've had to keep players, you
can't expect continuity not to be impacted, you know, when
they haven't been.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Ordinary players.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
You know, when you I think Jackson Ford, I don't
know how much how long before Jack goes back in
the team. But Darlin's been in JD. You've had camp here, Prairie,
You've had you skip up. It's it's been a it's
been a challenging time just to get some rhythm.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And you know, this isn't in any industry.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
If you're working in radio and your tech was off
seek one day, but they get a brilliant tech in
who's fantastic, and your producers just back from you know,
six months and you'll leave or something.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
You know that that kind of ulity has an impact because.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
There's a lot that goes on in high performance industries
that it's nonverbal. You you actually hang on I can
see decla needs that without even going.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
To hey, mate, you need a hand with that.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
So I just think that the worry is I don't
think their forms terrible. I just think that they just
don't have the flow that they had earlier on in
the season because the amount of injuries they've had.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
What about the nature of the season, it's been very
it's been stutter steps with the excessive amount of buyers,
all in a very concentrated period of time. Is the
origin era as well, So you've been home and away,
you've had buy the breaking a bye. That can't help
with rhythm and setting a team up either.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
But what you've got to do when you're in a
coaching position specifically, is you've got to create the environment
where that's helpful. All right, We've got some opportunity here
to bud some young players. Look, we've got to we
need to build our energy during these by periods so
that at the end back end of the season we're
building a season here. It's not about just when next
(03:42):
week we're going to be playing our best footy when
we hit the semifinals. So Andrew Webster strikes me. I
don't know him very well, but strikes me as a
very astute person and understands how to create the right
environment for people to perform at their best. And that's
the real responsibility what you've just shared there for the
coach and the staff to make sure the players aren't
(04:05):
distracted by things like that.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
They're actually elevated by it.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
They're elevated by a change in form or change in rhythm.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, change in rhythm.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Definitely when their buyers coming in and they might have
had a couple of their best players out, this is
an opportunity for people to.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Come in and show show their value.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Like I think Penrith is probably the best example of that.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
During how I don't know how many games they've.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Won when they've had their origin players out, but it's
quite a few, and then there's just putting a positive
framework around all of it. The other thing is you
can't play great all year in the NRL.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
It wouldn't be an elite competition.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
If it was just easy to play your best forty,
particularly when you've lost some of your best players. So
you've got to actually understand that, but do all you
possibly can to have all those you know, those bricks
areligning towards the back end of the season when.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
You're coaching and you're in a situation where you've lost
quality players. And this happened constant in the NRL. This
is not unusual. These coaches are always juggling with best
players and out part of your remit is to make
sure you've got guys to fold into positions when they're there,
which is what Andrew web has been talking about all year.
(05:23):
Next man up. So when that doesn't quite click, where
does that come from?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Well for me, that it has clicked for them, I
would think last week was probably closest to their most
disappointing performance because they just didn't come out of the
blox at all.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
But you know, look, sometimes in the NRL, you can.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Play your best foot and lose because the opposition played
better than you, and that you've just got to sometimes
learn from that rather than work out what are we
done wrong here? And I don't think the Warriors are
doing too much wrong. My eyes don't work work quite
well these days. So you know, I've been watching them
play and I feel like they're not far off their
best footing. There's just a few nuances that sometimes times,
(06:07):
you know, when you get those key players back, can
make a huge difference. I mean, probably if I was
being microanalyzing, I still think that, you know, Harris Devina
and Tomorrow Martin that there's some little things in their
their spine that.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
They really need to hone in onto.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
And you know, when they don't have their best back
rollers on the outside of them, their performance dips a
long way. Well, you know, they need to bring a
bit of their own running game. And I guess that's
what Luke Metcalfe was able to do, was when his
back row wasn't running that line or he didn't have
that shape around him, he was able to burn the
opposition or challenge the opposition on his own.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I believe they.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Know both those guys can they just sometimes need to
shift their attention away from just playing to the team
system and challenging the opposition as individuals.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Do you think they have a license to do that?
I mean, you can't climb into the mind of Webster.
Would he like them to stick with the routine that
they've got or maybe say, hell, look if you can
see some do it because they've both got a bit
of toe.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Well, I'll say this, I'm making a complete assumption here,
but my short answer to that will be yes, they've
got they've got permission to do that. It's sometimes it's
not just disappointing your coach. Sometimes when you don't play
the structure, you've got a whole lot of players moving
around you. So you've got to get the balance of
that right. And at the moment, that's just one little bits.
(07:31):
They're not way off, they're not playing bad. They just
need to bring a bit of individual threat to what
they're doing so that when the defensive line isn't just assuming.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
That they're going to make a play, that.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
They've also got to prepare themselves for them carrying the
ball as well, because, as you say, they can be
a real threat carrying the ball.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
They're just not doing it as much as they should
in my belief.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Temptation from fans out there, from media, but pliny not
from the coach anyway, to stick Luke Metcalf straight meck
in the thick of it. He's been us sifting around
the exterior for quite some nami. He's on the interchange bench,
but they talk to us about the idea about bringing
a guy like that back into the side again for
the out and out pace that he's got and what
(08:18):
he can offer. Is that positive or is it disruptive
to the team considering he is probably going away.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Well, it doesn't matter if he's going away.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
First of all, there's players going away from every club
every year, so that's just a reality that you have to.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Deal with at this level.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Again, I think that Andrew Webs is a very very
astute coach and he has his clear reasoning for doing that,
because what I would say in the question, when I
look at a picky out of the team, who is,
oh my goodness, bag's not coaching against him because you
just don't know what he's going to do, you do
(08:58):
lose some unpredictability. And I think Luke Medcalf would be
someone that you could bring in off the bench, like
I know he's named at eighteen, but yeah, i'd certainly
be looking at or exploring how.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Do you get him back in the team.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
The other little thing about this that I don't know
is obviously when you come back from ACLS, a lot
of players can come back and it doesn't impact their form.
For some other players, and where you and I both
know about overcoming the injuries, for some other players, it
takes a little longer to get back that explosive speed
that they had. It's probably sometimes doesn't take twelve months,
(09:33):
it takes eighteen months to two years, So.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
You'd be warning against any form of knee reaction. They've
had a wee bit of a skid, but it's genuinely
going in the right direction. They've got a very they've
got quite a difficult last six matches coming up, a
lot of teams in that top eight they've got to
play to try and secure their place at the top.
But don't change anything, just carry on where you're going.
(09:57):
Minor tweaks attitudinal things, but they've got the players out
there that they need. They've got the idea of the attitude.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Well, using using my perspective of it, I think they
do I don't believe their form is terrible. It certainly
can be better and probably, as I said last weekend
against the Bulldogs, it was probably the most disappointing I've
seen them play in a little while. But yeah, I
don't and they've got some fairly handy players coming back
into the team. Obviously they need to keep everyone fit
(10:26):
and healthy. But this is the perfect you know, Craig
Bellamy's done.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
It for years.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Trent Robinson does this all the time. He builds a season.
He doesn't want them play in their best footy in
the middle of the year. He wants them growing towards
their best footy at the back end of the year.
And that's you know, if you get to a point
where there's no improvement in you and you've got ten
rounds to go.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
What happens. There's only one way to go right, and
that's backwards.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So smart coaches, and I'm counting Andrew Webster as that
they build seasons, and obviously it will become easier to
build when you get some of those injured players back
and some of the players that.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Have just returned the team.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
You get a few more minutes under their belt and
a bit more playtimed and feeling at ease in the
structures and the systems that they're playing with.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Be at ease.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
It's okay. Don't try and turn it all around right here,
right now. You don't have to just keep going the
direction you're going.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
In well, particularly when you've got a smart coach and
when you've got so many quality players in your team,
you just got it.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
What's this word called trust?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
You've got to trust yourself and you've got to trust
each other.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And on that, we thank you very much for your time.
Good on you, Matthew Elliott.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
You're welcome. Made have a good one.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
For more from Sports Talk, listen Lived and News Talks.
There'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com