Richard Agar: Warriors assistant coach ahead of the team's season opener in Las Vegas

The Warriors are in Vegas!

They're opening their NRL season by taking on the Canberra Raiders at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders.

Assistant coach Richard Agar spoke to D'Arcy Waldegrave on Sportstalk about what the experience has been like and whether the US media are paying any attention.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from News Talks, it'd be we're.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Going to Las Vegas now, Warriors are over there see
to play the Raiders. As the NRL opens a twenty
twenty five season in the United States of America, Assistant
coach Richard Ager joins us.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Now, good evening, Richard, you know you're doing Darcy.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm probably not doing as well as you are, although
i'd suggest being in Vegas up to your eyeballs and
promotion and players for the first up game, You've probably
had easier gigs, haven't you.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Look, we're here to work. I think that's the important things.
It's an amazing event and spectacle, and you know, we
feel very privileged that we're one of the chosen teams
to kick off the season, and we've just done some
press and got asked a similar question. It's very, very
akin to a magic weekend, you know, where there's a
lot of teams in one place, and you know there's

(00:57):
one team's on the training field and other teams off it,
and you're running to.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
People in the hotels and all that.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
But I think because of those magic weekend experiences, everybody's
sort of used to it. You know, it's not as
wholly unusual as it may well have been back in time. Obviously,
Vegas is very different. But being here, been here quite early,
enabled the boys, you know, to get out there and
have a look and spend some time together before you know,

(01:26):
before we got down to the you know, the serious
hard work and finishing our preparation for the game on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
The game itself on the field, you're with, the lines,
you've gotten everything else is that much different from what
you'd experienced in our Elville, over here and in Inze
or Australia.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
I think, I think from by all accounts, you know,
the play surface is very good. We don't get to
see it until we finished our last training session on Friday.
What we found is we've trained on the pitch with
similar dimensions for the last maybe half a dozen sessions.

(02:05):
We obviously played on one down in Hamilton too, so look,
it's same for both sides. We've gone back and had
a look at last year's games. Both both games had
plenty of points in them. There might be the odd
you know instance where the size of the pitch comes
into it, but but it certainly didn't stop those games
being high scoring games and have too much effect on

(02:26):
the play And it's same for both sides. So it's
not it's not, it's not anything that's become too much
of an issue for us rigid.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
You see you Daniel media sessions. What's been the dominant
thought question from the American media and how much have
they actually climbed into this, Well.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
It's not really, it's mainly it's been mainly the Australian
and New Zealand media to be fair, there's some some
British media ear this morning which you know it's the
first time they've been so there's a lot of excitement
the fact that a British team is participating in you
know what is predominantly an NURL event. Uh you know
the codes not the code. Sorry that the too governing

(03:07):
bodies working together on that. The American media, I guess
have been quite passive in media conferences are certainly the
ones I've done anyway, as in the stand and the
listening the observed. You know, there's not been I guess
a heap of questions coming through about that, but you know,

(03:30):
there's certainly been a reasonably strong presence from.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
You've managed to finally got yourself a team selected first time,
and I don't know how long the decisions around that.
Plainly it comes down to coach, but you'd have a
fierce say, I'd suggest you have an here within many
debatable positions there before you name that team.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Richard. Yeah, loads and good ones.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
You know, I felt last year at the times during
the season, I guess we're shuffling the decks a little
bit with the amount of injuries we had.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
And probably people not in the form that we would
have liked. But this year, everybody's trained well. They've been
really well connected in training.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
The trial form has been good and when we picked
the team, you know, before we sat down to pick
the team, we felt straight away that they were going
to be three or four good players in good form
and experienced players that potentially wouldn't make our lineup.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
So yeah, it were difficult. I think.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
The makeup of the bench was probably the biggest talking point,
if you like, just around how you're going to make
eight interchanges work, the fact it's around one game, taking
into account the opposition that we're playing as well, and
just making sure that going in with an interchange plan,

(04:52):
we've got all bases covered on rotation, and sometimes it's
not just a case of can you get people on
and off, it's just can you use all those substitutions
effectively well and give everybody the required game time that.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
You know you think that player warrants.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
So yeah, that that was difficult, but we feel we've
come up with something for around one that certainly gives
us cover, picks people in form, gives us our best
opportunity to attack and defense strongly. And at the same time,
as I say, the guys that we think probably just

(05:31):
warranted the share, I'm going to say that a couple
of quite unbelievably close calls around the bench, and sometimes
you need a crystal ball to get.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
That one right, you know, because you know, we don't
know what's going to happen. But as I say, we
think we've got most of our bases covered. So yeah,
fingers cross, fingers cross, we've got it right.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
And you know, I love the fact that we've been
able to pick two three young guys in our in
ourk what mate, just purely unmerit on.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Who was the tightest call? You've started it, you can
finish it?

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Oh, I think the last one on the bench.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
You know, whether that's Sam Healey, tomorrow Martin. I'm trying
to think who else would have been in contention for that.
You know, Bunties had really strong showings preseason. Eddie m
is a guy that will come into contention because of
his versatility. So you know when I say all those
guys were, you know we're in the mix.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
They genuinely were in the mix.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
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