In 2015, during a reasonably horrible season for the NZ Warriors, Solomone Kata was a shining light. Not only was Kata a constant presence at left centre for the Warriors, he churned through metres and established himself as one of the most powerful outside backs in the NRL. Fast forward to 2016 and 20 games deep into the season, Kata hasn't suffered any sort of lull in his work, in fact he's better than he was and he's now a weapon that the Warriors can unleash in a variety of different ways.

Last season, Kata showed how durable he is, playing 24 games and with the Warriors in a constant state of flux, there was always a chance to smile with Kata locked in as a centre. In 2015, Kata scored 12 tries, averaged 11.2 carries a game, ran for 2,699m over the season, averaged 10.07m per-carry, averaged 0.5 line breaks a game and without the footy Kata averaged 2.2 missed tackles a game and 0.8 errors a game.

Those numbers tell the story of a centre with a nose for the try-line, who gets plenty of chances to run the footy and makes big metres with each carry. Kata was still acquainting himself with play centre at the NRL level so he was always going to miss a few tackles a game, the blueprint of what Kata could do was evident though.

2016 has seen Kata already score more tries than he did all of last season as he's got 14 and should get more.

Kata's also already got more line breaks so far this season than he had last season. He's on 14 line breaks now and has taken his average of 0.5 from last season up to 0.7.

Perhaps the most impressive growth in Kata's game has been his missed tackles, which has dropped from 2.2 a game to just 1 a game. Kata has 22 missed tackles this season and could finish the season with half as many missed tackles as he had last season.

There's also been a drop in Kata's errors, going from averaging 0.8 a game to 0.7 and if Kata only serves up a few errors in his last few games, he should stay below last season's total of 19 as he's on 14 now.

Kata still averages over 10m per-carry and he's bumped this up slightly, going from averaging 10.070m to 10.077m per-carry. Nothing crazy but every little bit helps right?

Since round 10 this season against Penrith, Kata only has one game in which he's run for less than 100m. Before round 10, Kata only had four games in which he'd run for more than 100m.

Kata's last three games...

Round 21 vs Penrith: 14 carries/129m.

Round 22 vs Titans: 10 carries/172m.

Round 23 vs Rabbitohs: 9 carries/149m.

Kata is ranked 9th in tackle busts with 92 so far this season.

Kata's ranked 7th in tries with 14.

Kata's ranked 12th in line breaks with 14 (Tuimoala Lolohea also has 14, as does Shaun Johnson, Lolohea's been dropped though so yeah).

There are still a few games left so it'll be interesting to see how Kata's numbers look after the season, especially as his best performances have come in the last two games with a low number of carries for plenty of metres. With the Warriors chasing a top-8 spot, Kata is their most dynamic ball-runner so expect Kata to feature heavily both on his left edge as well as cutting back off his left foot, back through the middle against tired forwards.

Ryan Hoffman's form is also interesting when pondering the work of Kata as they are comrades down that left edge. Hoffman had an up and down start to the season in which he ran over 100m just six times in the first 13 games, however since then, Hoffman has taken at least 11 carries for over 100m in every game. Hoffman's also put up three 150m+ games in the last seven games, meaning that Hoffman's gone from making 100m six times in first 13 games to making over 150m three times in seven games.

This gives the Warriors even more reason to go down their left edge as they have Kata and Hoffman in great form, plus Manu Vatuvei is getting through consistent game time on the wing. With Shaun Johnson usually operating on the right, the Warriors have a habit of attacking too frequently down their right and not feeding the left enough.

No NRL centre has more line breaks than Kata and no NRL centre has more tries than Kata, heck, only Joey Leilua has more tackle busts than Kata as a consistent NRL centre. So just let Kata go nuts, yeah?