‘It’s not easy’: New Zealand Warriors on long road to recovery from record loss

Coach Nathan Brown says it will “take time” for the New Zealand Warriors to completely recover from Monday night’s “embarrassing” loss to the Melbourne Storm.

On Anzac Day, the Warriors became the first NRL team since 2008 to concede 70 points in a game, going down 70-10.

The Storm ran in 54 unanswered points in the second half, and when the full-time siren sounded, the Warriors had suffered the worst defeat in their 28-year history.

On Wednesday, Brown said rebuilding resilience and pride in the jersey wouldn’t happen overnight.

“It takes time. It’s not easy,” he said.

“We had some players in that second period who were a fair way off where they’d like to be.”

Stream every match of every round of the 2022 Toyota AFL Premiership Season Live & Ad-Break Free In-Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >

Brown admitted the Warriors had been confident heading into the clash with the Storm and said he was pleased his side was able to match it with Melbourne for the first 40 minutes.

“Coming into the Melbourne game, we all felt we were making some reasonable progress,” he said.

“At halftime we felt obviously we were probably a touch unlucky not to be leading the game.

“What happened after it was not acceptable by anyone’s standards. We don’t want to forget that we were heading in the (right) direction, but obviously we can’t just completely forget what happened (in the second half) either.”

Brown resisted the temptation to make mass changes to his side, with only winger Edward Kosi dropped from the 17 on the basis of poor performance.

While the Warriors have nine players sidelined through injury, Brown said he likely would not have swung the axe any further even if he had more players at his disposal.

“We can’t go and make mass changes on the back of one half of footy,” he said.

“There were some things that happened in the second half from an effort point of view that we’re extremely disappointed with, with individuals … They’ve been made aware of that.

“Ed had a really tough day and it certainly knocked him around a bit. Giving Ed a week off is probably not only the best thing for us as a footy team but for Ed himself.”

Brown said pundits were right to criticise his side but urged them to steer clear of the younger players.

“It’s hard to argue with people being very critical when these things happen,” he said.

“Myself personally, I’m the head coach so I’ve got to take a huge chunk for that responsibility.

“People need to be mindful that some of these boys are young and whilst being in a high-performance sport comes with responsibility … they are young and they are still learning their trade.”

Brown said there was an opportunity for the younger players to get something out of the hefty loss.

“You just want them to learn from it,” he said.

“You want them to get some good out of it and the good is obviously the things that they got wrong, understanding what impact they had.

“If they get some lessons out of it, it helps us become a better club and individuals to become better players.

“As embarrassing as it is and as bad as it is, you’ve got something out of it and that is the key.”