The Warriors may be able to get a replacement if a player has to return from Australia to New Zealand on compassionate grounds.
Thirty-six Warriors players and officials were cleared on Saturday morning to leave for Australia on Sunday afternoon (NZ time) en route to Tamworth, where they will be in quarantine for 14 days ahead of the NRL’s proposed May 28 restart.
Warriors chief executive Cameron George told AAP the Kiwi club also has the option to apply for a replacement if any player needed to return to Auckland.
“The squad we’re taking across is the intended squad that we play with for the duration of the season,” George said.
“The NRL have been really good in that regard and … they’re prepared to at least look at an application from our club, which is a good assurance for us.”
George told The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney that Australian police had told him they planned spot checks on the Warriors during their stay.
The Warriors will have access to an in-house wellbeing officer for the season and, like all clubs, be subject to a biosecurity briefing on Monday before training gets the all-clear.
Following the quarantine period in Tamworth, the team is likely to move to a facility on the NSW Central Coast, where they will be based for the duration of the campaign and, preferably, play their ‘home’ games.
While Australian NRL players have at least been able to train in groups of two, the Warriors have endured a complete lockdown.
“When they get into camp next week they can physically see them and look at them, see how they’re running,” George said.
“But everything’s been pretty good so far.
“It’s been a really challenging few weeks so to get that notification only 24 hours before we were due to depart was a big relief for our club and players.
“They’re very excited about what lies ahead.”
Meanwhile, Australian rugby league great Cameron Smith was reportedly among the Warriors’ biggest supporters in the club’s quest to get clarity over pay issues before their arrival in Australia.
Neil Breen, a 9News Australia sports reporter, wrote in his Sydney Morning Herald column that the Warriors had been the “loudest voice inside the NRL player pay revolt”.
” At all turns, it has been the Warriors, whose group is led by Blake Green, who have asked the most questions about the NRL restart. After all, they are in the toughest spot, Breen wrote.
“As one senior Sydney player said: “It’s easy for the Sydney clubs. We can train and play and go home to our own house. The Warriors can’t.”
Breen said players from other clubs had backed the Warriors throughout the process.
“Green is very close to Cameron Smith as a result of their playing days at the Storm. When Green has said the Warriors want their families to travel with them, or when he said during Wednesday night’s phone hook-up that the Warriors would not come over without a pay deal signed off, Smith has backed him. The sheer weight of Smith’s stature in the game meant delegates from other clubs followed suit.
“Rugby League Players Association boss Clint Newton is petrified of the public reaction to the players’ threat not to return to training until they knew exactly how much they would be paid. The players are, too, but their confusion about the poor state of finances at NRL headquarters outweighs that concern.
Breen said Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys was gutted on Thursday when he heard of the players’ stance. “He’d worked tirelessly to save their season. He thought they were ungrateful. But, in turn, the players knew the NRL needed them more than ever. It gave them skin in the game and they wanted answers before signing on the dotted line.
“In the case of the Warriors, before they flew to Australia and bunkered down in Tamworth, they wanted to know exactly how much money they would be sending home.”
AAP, Sydney Morning Herald.
