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Speaker 1: Hey, you know what we do this time of year.

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Speaker 1: We remind you the Warriors kick off as close. This

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Speaker 1: year it's in Vegas, which may or may not be

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Speaker 1: a good thing. It's against the baseball bat wielding Raiders.

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Speaker 1: So how they going? Coach Andrew Webster is with us.

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Speaker 2: Good morning morning, How are you look.

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Speaker 1: I'm fantastic Vegas. Talk to me Vegas. So far, how

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Speaker 1: much work, how much play?

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Speaker 2: We landed? And we're very social. For the first two

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Speaker 2: days the players knuckled straight down, got in the training.

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Speaker 2: Ever since, we've trained really hard and really well. I

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Speaker 2: think the Vegas strips out of their system now and

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Speaker 2: everyone's so excited looking forward to to chasing two points.

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Speaker 1: What about the business of jet lag, time zones, all

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Speaker 1: of that is that under control.

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Speaker 2: The jet lay. Myself, I'm not as good as I

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Speaker 2: thought I would be, but yeah, getting there with it,

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Speaker 2: definitely getting there. The players obviously got a really good

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Speaker 2: routine routine there. They're finding a lot better. I thought

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Speaker 2: today they had a lot of bounce about their training.

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Speaker 2: So that's always exciting when you know they're training well.

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Speaker 2: But jet lag has been It's not a long time difference,

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Speaker 2: but it's enough to throw you out a little bit and.

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Speaker 1: The hype and the noise. Have you got a sense

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Speaker 1: on the ground yet? I mean, is Vegas genuinely interested

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Speaker 1: in what the NRL are trying to do.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to gauge it. We our pitches are not

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Speaker 2: ours in myself with the boys and the NRL pictures

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Speaker 2: around around the city, which is cool to see. It's

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Speaker 2: pretty amazing that they're going to be headlining one of

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Speaker 2: the acts this leak. But I think when we get

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Speaker 2: close to it. We've got a big street parade with

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Speaker 2: on Thursday night in the old Las Vegas town and

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Speaker 2: I think apparently that's when you really get to feel

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Speaker 2: that it's Rugby League fever, and there's a lot more

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Speaker 2: promotions leading up to the first game, I mean up

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Speaker 2: to the weekend, so I think we'll feel that more

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Speaker 2: than at that stay now.

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Speaker 1: If you go back a bit in the original news

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Speaker 1: and the Warrior is being part of this, so the

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Speaker 1: NRL they want to attack the American market. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: it's all good for the NRL, but as a coach

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Speaker 1: of a team that wants to win a game of football,

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Speaker 1: is it a potential distraction?

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Speaker 2: And I definitely found out whether we could be going.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't interested, but obviously I stop being selfish and

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Speaker 2: started realizing how good this is for our brand and

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Speaker 2: to put it on the world stage. I think it's

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Speaker 2: an amazing opportunity for our club, but just can't be

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Speaker 2: at the expense of two points. And then I started thinking,

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Speaker 2: this is a really big challenge for our boys to

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Speaker 2: be able to enjoy the experience and take it all in,

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Speaker 2: but make sure they're ready to go on the weekend.

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Speaker 2: And so far they ot. They handled the challenge really well,

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Speaker 2: but as always, you won't know until you get punched

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Speaker 2: in the face of the game day. At the stage

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Speaker 2: they handled it really well.

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Speaker 1: What about those little thing size of the field, shape

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Speaker 1: of the field, you know, the American Stadium? Do you do?

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Speaker 1: You think and talk a lot about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we do, we do. In our second trial,

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Speaker 2: form were fortunate enough that the markings look field with

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Speaker 2: the Las Vegas pitch width and length, and then the

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Speaker 2: fields we train on here are the same. And then

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Speaker 2: we even before we left, we had three training sessions

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Speaker 2: on our field at home where we changed the marking.

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Speaker 2: So this is just to make sure that we don't

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Speaker 2: get we're not unorganized. I'm not ready for it. But

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Speaker 2: the biggest thing we find is if you got space

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Speaker 2: on the edge to attack, and the next thing our

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Speaker 2: attackers are running out of the room, like we ran

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Speaker 2: out three times today, got pushing the touch back against

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Speaker 2: each other, just simply not having our bearings right. So

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Speaker 2: we just got to keep working on that.

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Speaker 1: Now. These trial games, which I watched both of them,

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Speaker 1: of course see the commentary singed on the first one

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Speaker 1: to be a little bit negative that drawer. I didn't

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Speaker 1: think it was as bad as people made it out

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Speaker 1: to be. I mean, I'm sure you're unhappy, but it

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Speaker 1: wasn't the end of the world.

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Speaker 2: Was it? Certainly well an end of the world, nothing

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Speaker 2: to worry or panic about. I wish we worked better,

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Speaker 2: but you know, I thought we obviously needed to get

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Speaker 2: rid of some rusks. I thought the second trial were

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Speaker 2: very dominant. Obviously wasn't against Melbourne's best team, But I

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Speaker 2: thought we took a lot of learning in the first

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Speaker 2: trial and it allowed us to narrow our focus in

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Speaker 2: the next week around our defense. Particularly. Yeah, you saw

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Speaker 2: it much improved in a much more aggressive physical performance.

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Speaker 2: But without that first trial, we wouldn't have known that

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Speaker 2: because you think you're going all really smooth when you're

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Speaker 2: training against each other, you don't really know it until

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Speaker 2: you face another opposition.

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Speaker 1: And what did you take out of Melbourne? I mean

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Speaker 1: you said that they didn't have much of a side

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Speaker 1: of course, but then again we had some people missing.

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Speaker 1: So what's the value, you know, of a trial if

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Speaker 1: you can't put the field or the team on the

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Speaker 1: field that you want.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, that's true. I mean the big things

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Speaker 2: I took out of it were just I thought we

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Speaker 2: were very at the start of the game. I thought

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Speaker 2: we got the start right, we got into a rhythm

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Speaker 2: with our defense, and I thought our attack was really

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Speaker 2: we're very well and where we wanted to be and

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Speaker 2: how we wanted to get there, And then once we

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Speaker 2: got there, I thought we then executed our play very well.

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Speaker 2: I thought everyone was on tink, but I thought it

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Speaker 2: all came from saving energy and being more efficient with

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Speaker 2: our defense, which gave us a better opportunity to attack well.

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Speaker 1: James Fisher, Harrison for that matter, all the other newbies,

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Speaker 1: how are they fitting in? Is that working?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? It's going really well. Fish is a strength has

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Speaker 2: been leadership, not so much from talking all the time,

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Speaker 2: but leadership from his actions, the way he trains people

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Speaker 2: just don't want to let fish down. So he's out

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Speaker 2: there doing extras for ages, and now you've got all

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Speaker 2: these young guys with him doing it, you know. I

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Speaker 2: mean everyone's always done extras at our club, but it's

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Speaker 2: just done to a different intensity now, which is really cool.

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Speaker 2: Aaron Clark has then he's a new playoff thought. He's

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Speaker 2: been awesome and he's ford really well. In particular in

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Speaker 2: that Melbourne game he played outstanding. So it's good for

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Speaker 2: a couple of KEYWHI he's in to the Worrior It come.

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Speaker 1: Home to New Zille fantastic, Andrew. Before you got to Vegas,

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Speaker 1: you had the camp part of the summer program. Of course,

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Speaker 1: and I'm reading all about this. There was no television,

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Speaker 1: no phones, and you played board games all day. Wore

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Speaker 1: that said about.

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Speaker 2: We didn't play them all day. We trained pretty hard

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Speaker 2: on that. Uh No, we just we just wanted to

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Speaker 2: get away and go to somewhere and we went to

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Speaker 2: Saint Caps obviously high school in the school holidays, so

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Speaker 2: we had the run of the whole facility and we

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Speaker 2: had great fields, we had a great gym, We had

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Speaker 2: a pool for recovery, and then we had dorms, so

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Speaker 2: there was like six to eight in the dorn. We

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Speaker 2: had a big food hall. We played lot trivia at night.

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Speaker 2: There was only done. They had to use their phones

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Speaker 2: for an hour a day. They had to come and

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Speaker 2: get it out of I fell off from the team

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Speaker 2: manager just to call home and make sure everything was okay.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, you just found everyone talking so much more.

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Speaker 2: And then at night they started playing board games and

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Speaker 2: started you know, it was almost like the old days.

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Speaker 2: It was pretty exciting, and as a result of it,

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Speaker 2: I felt like our connections are better, a lot closer

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Speaker 2: because I actually start asking genuine questions rather than just

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Speaker 2: in between the odd how's my social media going, and

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Speaker 2: then putting the head up and having a probably a

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Speaker 2: fake conversation that the boy said to the little ones.

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Speaker 1: And did you notice a variation in the way they

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Speaker 1: handled that depending on age or not?

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Speaker 2: Definitely the first all, yeah, it's different. The younger guys

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Speaker 2: are very keen on obviously the social media side of it,

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Speaker 2: and that's their life, that's how they communicate. And then

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Speaker 2: the sort of the older boys were more worried about

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Speaker 2: just making sure their families were good and how were

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Speaker 2: they So there was two different, two different objectives and

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Speaker 2: why they wanted their phones. But I felt like the

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Speaker 2: first two nights they almost didn't know what to do.

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Speaker 2: I mean after dinner, after we played our tribute, they

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Speaker 2: almost didn't know what to do. And then by the

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Speaker 2: last three nights he saw them that social, that happy,

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Speaker 2: and it was a great experiment.

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Speaker 1: Now, ultimately, what have you taken out of last year

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Speaker 1: which should have been better but wasn't to put into

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Speaker 1: this year.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, on the field point of view, our goal

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Speaker 2: line defense certainly wasn't good enough and our goal line attacks,

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Speaker 2: so it's been a pretty simple focus. The other one

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Speaker 2: is I don't think you can always assume that you

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Speaker 2: think we've covered that, we've practiced that a lot that

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Speaker 2: we've got that we've got that covered. We probably we

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Speaker 2: probably didn't have the same amount of detail on a

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Speaker 2: few things, if I'm being honest, But definitely want to

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Speaker 2: sort out our goalline attack yet. About to being resilient,

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Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of detail in that. But

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Speaker 2: I think there's also when you care for each other

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Speaker 2: and you've got a good bond as a group and

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Speaker 2: you want to actually defend your try one for your

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Speaker 2: mate and then yeah, just our execution next to the line.

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Speaker 2: We were absolutely ruthefol see you before. And last year

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Speaker 2: we just didn't. We didn't put it together a lot

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Speaker 2: we should have.

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Speaker 1: So the big question obviously is this our year.

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Speaker 2: I hope. So I'm as confident as have been in

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Speaker 2: the last two seasons. So one year we come out

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Speaker 2: and did it, the second year we didn't, so hopefully

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Speaker 2: thirds a charm. But yeah, I'm confident. Hopefully, hopefully I'm

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Speaker 2: confident every year it's going to be a year. But

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Speaker 2: at the moment the boys are giving you no indication

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Speaker 2: that it shouldn't be a year.

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Speaker 1: Good on you go. Well, we'll be watching on the weekend.

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Speaker 1: Andrew Webster, Warrior's coach with us. By the way, interesting

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Speaker 1: article across the Tasman they're talking about this whole Vegas

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Speaker 1: thing by trying to crack this market America in the

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Speaker 1: city with foreign sport that few have heard of or understand.

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Speaker 1: The National Rugby League is shooting for the moon, which

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Speaker 1: is probably not a bad way of putting it. The

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Speaker 1: Australian media also reporting as far as they went through

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Speaker 1: Sidney Morning Herald this is they've gone through every team

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Speaker 1: and proticted where the season is going to go for

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Speaker 1: them Sydney Morning Herald. And the very good news is

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Speaker 1: because they're Australians, they don't quite understand how it works.

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Speaker 1: They have us with seven wins and coming second to last,

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Speaker 1: so clearly got that wrong.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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