Warriors won’t rush Barnett

Warriors coach Andrew Webster says he’ll wait to see how confident Mitch Barnett is about his neck before confirming he’ll line up against the Dolphins on Saturday at Mt Smart Stadium.

The hard-nosed 29-year-old forward has been out since picking up a neck injury in round three against the Cowboys, with his recovery taking longer than expected.

However, after receiving medical clearance a couple of weeks ago and confirmation the bruising had gone down, the former Knights star has resumed full training and has been named on the interchange bench for the NRL game against

Wayne Bennett’s team.

But Webster says they will continue to take a cautious approach with

Barnett. If he doesn’t feel he’s ready or has any setbacks in today’s training session or tomorrow’s captain’s run, he’ll sit out another week.

‘‘If everything goes well he’s going to play, which is exciting. If he gets through the next two training sessions he’ll be good to go,’’ Webster said.

‘‘It’s all reps and confidence and Mitch has got that back. That’s why we’ve made sure we played the long game.

‘‘Mitch has been frustrated, he’s wanted to play, he’s motivated, he’s a bad spectator, so he wants to play all the time.’’

It was an eventful night in Napier on Saturday, with the Warriors’ 26-22 loss to the Broncos impacted by numerous pitch invasions, while there was also the big moment at the end of the game when Adam Pompey grabbed Deine Mariner’s jersey as Marcelo Montoya was scoring, which led to the try being rubbed out and a Warriors defeat.

Webster says his centre knows he made a mistake, but is confident he’ll make amends for it on Saturday.

‘‘That moment can’t define his game, I thought he had a great game,’’ Webster said. ‘‘We shouldn’t have been in that situation, because of other moments.

‘‘But it was a moment he needed to be better there. Would we have scored? Who knows? I don’t know the answer. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

‘‘I’ve watched it five times and I don’t know if they get Marcelo, or they don’t.

‘‘In the reviews and feedback he’s made it pretty clear to me and the team that he knows exactly what he needed to do in that situation.

‘‘He’s had complete ownership and anyone who knows Adam knows he cares deeply and prepares well.

‘‘He’ll be hurting, but he knows we’ve got his back and we go again this weekend. We know he’ll make up for it. It’s an easy conversation when a player already knows what he needed to do.’’

At the start of the season a home game against the Dolphins would have been regarded as a definite two points in the bank for the Warriors. But the fledgling club has defied the pundits and midway through the season is sixth on the ladder, two spots higher than the Warriors.

Webster said he didn’t buy into the argument that the Dolphins were favourites for this year’s wooden spoon because they couldn’t land a marquee signing.

‘‘When I looked at them on paper, I couldn’t work out why everyone was saying they were that bad,’’ he said.

‘‘The only thing I was guessing was how are they going to get on the same page so quickly? Because it’s not everyday that everyone comes from all different teams and plays together.

‘‘Also I felt like how they recruited, people already knew each other’s games. There were some guys who had combinations at rep football or club football previously.

‘‘I was thinking they weren’t going to be a poor as everyone said, I was thinking they were going to be a team that competed really hard.

‘‘They’re actually more than that, they’ve got an identity, they’ve got skill, they know what they’re doing, they can pull teams apart and they can defend for long periods, so they’re a complete package at the moment and that’s really exciting for the game,’’ Webster said.