Monday Morning Dummy Half: Aotearoa's Young Middle Monsters
Aotearoa's rugby league depth has been a brewing topic throughout the 2020 season and while much of this is because of waves of young talent flowing into the NRL, there is a bit of a graduation process going down higher up the depth chart. Conveniently, the trio of young-ish Kiwis middle forwards in James Fisher-Harris, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Joseph Tapine all made notable contributions in wins for their respective teams and while there are other moving pieces that add to the funky Kiwi-NRL depth, these three feel as though they are certified monsters in the NRL and whenever the Kiwis are back in action.
Penrith Panthers defeated Sydney Roosters in their first Finals match up and it's fair to say that up to this point, the Panthers are the best team in the 2020 NRL season. Northland's Fisher-Harris, has played 21 games this season for the Panthers and that's every damn game in the best team with some fairly hefty stats highlighting the consistent contributions of Fisher-Harris.
Playing 56 minutes vs Roosters, Fisher-Harris had 14 runs for 123m @ 8.78m/run with 45 tackles @ 88.9 percent. Finals footy tightens everything up a wee bit and while these numbers are slightly down on what Fisher-Harris dished up every week this season, that's to be expected when venturing into Finals footy. For example, Fisher-Harris averages 19.42 runs per game and that dipped down to 14 runs vs Roosters and this was the third game all season in which Fisher-Harris ran for less than 150m; the other two games were in the last five games of the regular season and perhaps Fisher-Harris eased up.
21 games and averaging 58mins per game. Fisher-Harris has been top-five in total runs, run metres and post-contact-metres nearly every week of the season, as a 24-year-old. It's rather bonkers for a middle forward to be as available as Fisher-Harris throughout his career as he made his debut in 2016 and played 23 games that year, followed by 15 games, 25 games, 24 games leading into 21 games this season. 24-years-old and 108 NRL games ... already.
Wellington's Tapine scored a try in his 51 minutes for the Raiders, starting in the #13 jersey and getting through 12 runs for 136m @ 11.33m/run, along with a linebreak for his try, a linebreak assist, 9 tackle busts, 2 offloads and 28 tackles @ 100 percent.
Tapine averages 56mins per game, with 19 games played. While Fisher-Harris averages 180m per game, Tapine averages 124m per game and that's made up for with Tapine's 32 offloads to Fisher-Harris' 15 offloads, or Tapine's 43 tackle busts to Fisher-Harris' 12 tackle busts. Tapine doesn't quite have the volume of work as Fisher-Harris, yet there's greater impact and funk with what Tapine does and that's all good given they are different blokes with different roles in their team.
Take the Raiders forward pack for example where Josh Papali'i was the only other forward who had 2+ tackle busts vs Sharks. All the other Raiders forwards had 1 tackle bust, or none and Tapine's cruising through 9 tackle busts and Tapine is now on a six game streak of 2+ tackle busts to go with 11 games in a row of squeezing out at least 1 offload.
What do Tapine and Fisher-Harris have in common? Tapine tackles at 91.9 percent efficiency and Fisher-Harris has his 91.6 percent efficiency.
Tapine is 26-years-old and made his debut way back in 2014 for Newcastle Knights, playing 119 games in his career thus far; 7 games (2014), 13 games (2015), 25, 22, 16, 17 and 19 games so far this season.
Melbourne Storm have plenty of super duper high quality forwards and a bunch of Aotearoa's best, yet it's all about Nelson Asofa-Solomona when pondering these young but low key experienced Kiwis forwards. In defeating Parramatta Eels, Asofa-Solomona played 53 minutes with 17 runs for 138m @ 8.11m/run, 5 tackle busts and 25 tackles @ 100 percent.
That's not quite as destructive as Asofa-Solomona can be, but again everything tightens up in Finals footy and with plenty of oomph in the Storm forward pack, Asofa-Solomona doesn't need to do everything; especially when the Waiheke Ram Brandon Smith has 14 runs for 152m @ 10.85m/run in 44mins.
At 24-years-old, Asofa-Solomona has played 122 NRL games since making his debut in 2015 and again, it's the availability that catches the eye here. Six seasons in the NRL and Asofa-Solomona's annual breakdown looks like this: 12 games (2015), 15 games (2016), 26, 24, 27 and 18 this season. While Fisher-Harris is doing great work in the best team of this season and Tapine's flexing on a Raiders team that has been in ascension mode over the last few years, Asofa-Solomona is doing his excellent work in the best NRL team of my time following the NRL.
Everything is a bit more sporadic for Asofa-Solomona as Storm coach Craig Bellamy is constantly tinkering, in terms of starting vs bench as well as a wider range of minutes. For example, this season has seen Asofa-Solomona, Dale Finucane, Tino Fa'asuamaleaui and Brandon Smith play the lock role. Nonetheless Asofa-Solomona has 1+ tackle busts in every single game this season and of his 18 games played this season, Asofa-Solomona has 1 tackle bust in just three games.
That can be flipped into an eight game stretch of 2+ tackle busts per game, amounting to 65 tackle busts all season to go with 22 offloads. Like Tapine and Fisher-Harris, Asofa-Solomona is an excellent defender in the middle with the best tackle efficiency of this trio at 92.2 percent, to go with an average of 122m per game.
All three of these lads are from outside Auckland as well. Given that Tapine (Harbour City) and Asofa-Solomona (Upper Hutt) are both from Wellington, big up to Wellington and there is a growing crew of young Northlanders with Fisher-Harris joined by Corey Harawira-Naera and Dylan Brown. All these dudes are young and playing at a high level in the best teams, which won't amount to anything with regards to Aotearoa Kiwis footy this season but is definitely a funky part of the Kiwi-NRL takeover.
Shout out to Isaac Liu (Roosters) and Braden Hamlin-Uele (Sharks) who I haven't mentioned in the same bracket as this trio of monsters. Both are worthy though, both are Aotearoa Kiwis internationals and both are from Auckland - I wanted to focus on the non-Auckland aspect. Here are how their stats align with the trio discussed above...
Braden Hamlin-Uele (Glenora Bears - 25yrs): 96m per game, 84.8 percent tackle efficiency, 52 tackle busts, 19 offloads.
Isaac Liu: (Otahuhu Leopards- 29yrs): 108m per game, 92.8 percent tackle efficiency, 23 tb, 2 offloads.
Nelson Asofa-Solomona (Upper Hutt Tigers - 24yrs): 122m per game, 92.2 percent tackle efficiency, 65 tb, 22 offloads.
Joseph Tapine (Harbour City Eagles - 26yrs): 124m per game, 91.9 percent tackle efficiency, 43 tb, 32 offloads.
James Fisher-Harris (Whangarei Marist - 24yrs): 180m per game, 91.6 percent tackle efficiency, 12 tb, 15 offloads.
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Peace and love.