If you're looking for reasons to love Jordan Rapana, his haircut is a good place to start.

As tends to be the case, it's been a whirlwind of a start to the 2016 NRL season. We've got a clear group of four teams (Storm, Broncos, Cowboys and Sharks) who have established themselves as the top-dawgs while the chasing pack of teams is large with the Bulldogs sitting in 5th on 12 points while the Warriors sit in 13th, only 4 points behind the Doggies.

Stretching it out to the Roosters, who sit in 15th spot on 6 points, there are 10 teams who could make a genuine claim for the remaining 4 spots in the top-8. The competition is incredibly tight and as the dust settles after a hectic start to the season, it's a good time to take a look at which players stand out with their numbers, their production, their efficiency, with a kiwi/polynesian twist of course.

We'll start with the tries where we are graced with Jordan Rapana in 3rd on 9 tries. Rapana has had a great start to the season with the Raiders, forming a dynamic combination with Joey Leilua on their right edge and his try-scoring feats have been matched by his work in general play. Rapana has run for over 100m in all but 2 games this season and of those 8 games in which he has run for more than 100m, Rapana has run for more than 150m 4 times.

This comes with Rapana making at least a line break in 8 games, averaging 1.3 line breaks a game and Rapana actually leads the NRL in line breaks with 14. Plus he's shown that he can spark some second-phase footy for the Raiders with 10 offloads in 10 games.

Solomone Kata was near the top of the try-scoring ranks, but he's slowed in recent rounds with only 2 tries in his last 4 games. Kata is now 6th with 8 tries from 10 games while Sosaia Feki and Jordan Kahu both have 7 tries and Curtis Rona has officially turned the corner after a slow start to the season, scoring 4 of his 6 tries in his last 3 games.

Despite the 'coconut ball' stereotype, Ben Matulino is the only Warrior who features in the top-20 offloaders thus far. Matulino is 16th with 15 offloads, thankfully for us kiwis there's no shortage of kiwi offloaders popping offloads out with great regularity. Jesse Bromwich is 2nd with 28 offloads, Peta Hiku is 6th with 20 offloads, Sam Kasiano is 8th on 19 offloads, Jason Nightingale is 10th on 17 offloads and Manu Ma'u is 12th on 16 offloads.

No wonder the Raiders are enjoying the work of their right edge as Joey Leilua leads the offloaders with 30, which when he's got Rapana sniffing around makes them almost unstoppable; the Raiders right edge has the leading offloader and the leading line-breaker. Samoan international Junior Paulo is 3rd with 23 offloads.

When looking at who has the most impact carting the footy up, run-metres doesn't quite tell the full story. Josh Dugan, James Graham and Cameron Munster make up the top-3 metre-eaters, but they also take the most runs in the NRL. Where our kiwi lads, notably Jesse Bromwich and Jason Taumalolo shine is their efficiency with each run, how many metres they make with each run.

Taumalolo is ranked 5th in metres with 1,560m and Bromwich is ranked 12th with 1,426m, both are ranked outside the top-10 for runs with Taumalolo 19th with 149 runs and Bromwich 13th with 153 runs. Taumalolo is a freak in this regard as he averages 10.46m with each carry, usually slicing back behind the ruck area using his speed and power to make easy metres, easy for him any way.

Bromwich averages 9.32m, which isn't quite as impressive but he does play more minutes than Taumalolo and is also ranked 2nd in offloads. Compare Bromwich and Taumalolo's efficiency to that of Graham (8.14m), Dugan (9.29) and Munster (9.03) and the Kiwis stalwarts come out on top.

Rapana and Nightingale also feature in the top-20 for metres, with Rapana ranked 17th on 1,385m and Nightingale 19th on 1,350m.

One of the more staggering observations is Shaun Kenny-Dowall's presence as the leading tackle-buster. After off-field dramas filled his summer, SKD has broken 61 tackles this season and he's done so in a Roosters team which has had a horrible start to the season. SKD had a whopping 17 tackle breaks in round 9, allowing him to hold his perch at the top despite not playing last weekend. Keep in mind that SKD's tackle breaks have come without the luxury of a full-strength Roosters forward pack, so as they get some key forwards back and SKD returns, the Chooks will be dangerous.

Rapana is 4th in tackle breaks with 51, so basically Rapana is the mantis.

Kata is 8th on 45 tackle breaks and Nightingale the gypsy is 19th on 34 tackle breaks.

SKD and Rapana could also make improvements though as they both feature in the top-20 for errors. SKD is 2nd with 16 errors and Rapana is 15th with 11 errors, so if they can limit those errors they could both enjoy a boost to their metres, line breaks and tackle busts.

A worry for Warriors fans is that Shaun Johnson features in the top-20 for errors and missed tackles. Johnson is 17th with 11 errors and he's also 19th in missed tackles having missed 29 tackles this year, missing 2 or more tackles in his past 5 games. Johnson is only joined by Hiku as Kiwis in the top-20 for missed tackles, Hiku is 8th with 36 missed tackles, the same number as Jonathan Thurston.

Johnson isn't quite Thurston though.

I'll finish with a stray observation regarding Nelson Asofa-Solomona, whom I regard as one of the best up-and-coming forwards in the NRL. After enjoying a solid run of games last season, NAS had to wait until round 5 to get his first run in 2016 and we can judge his quality by the swift improvement and consistency in his game.

NAS made 52m from 7 runs in 23 minutes in round 5 against the Knights, he then ran for 93m against the Bulldogs in 26 minutes before settling into a nice 100m rhythm. NAS has now run for over 100m in his last 4 games and what's most impressive about those efforts is that they have all come in 35 minutes of action or less (109m in 23mins, 120m in 27mins, 123m in 31mins, 116m in 35mins).

Throw in 6 offloads in those 4 games, plus that the Storm have won all of those games in which NAS has run over 100m and I reckon the Storm have got the x-factor they needed to push for a Premiership.