Diary Of A Warriors Fan: Looking Slick
Tonga
With rugby league fans across Australia and Aotearoa tuned in to see the Hayne Plane take flight, the NZ Warriors put together one of their strongest games of the season against Gold Coast to snap up a few crucial points. Wins for the Warriors this season have tended to either come against opposition who are obviously weaker than them, or in gritty fashion with the Warriors not playing their best but finding a way to win. Perhaps that's what we should all toast to, as the Warriors played their best footy on a big stage late in the season against a rival team who is also in the hunt for the remaining top-8 spot/s.
I've tried to lay down the blueprint for the Warriors often this season in this Warriors Diary, yet that's merely been in written form. On the Gold Coast we got a clear example of how the Warriors play when they are on-song and how they need to play if they are going to stay in the top-8 and progress through the Finals.
The outside backs all showcased their athletic ability and kept the Warriors moving forward down field. Having Ken Maumalo, David Fusitua, Solomone Kata and Manu Vatuvei in your backline is an asset because you've got four more ball-carriers who cause damage. Damage and go-forward is what this outside backs group is all about.
It's important to mention both Bodene Thompson and Ryan Hoffman here as well because they all come together to give the Warriors a powerful presence on either edge and this was on full display against Gold Coast. The Warriors pounded their way through the middle of the field and were keen to hit their edges early, which is great because Hoffman and Thompson are making plenty of metres whenever they carry the footy.
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These outside backs compliment the work of Jacob Lillyman, Albert Vete, Simon Mannering and Sam Lisone through the middle as they start the sets off strongly. This win came from the foundation laid down through the middle and while Matulino was once again the stand out performer for the Warriors with 11 carries for 120m in 47 minutes, the workload was shared nicely...
Lillyman: 47 mins, 9 carries, 81m.
Vete: 30 mins, 10 carries, 91m.
Lisone: 28 mins, 7 carries, 73m.
Mannering: 80 mins, 11 carries, 99m.
Matulino is great coming off the bench and I've celebrated his work in coming on after 20 minutes to flip the game in the Warriors favour, however this is only possible because Vete is doing a solid job in starting alongside Lillyman. Any game in which the Warriors play their best footy has to also heavily involve Mannering with and without the footy, so we can't sleep on Mannering making 45 tackles and averaging a scratch under 10m per-carry.
Mannering leads the effort of the Warriors on the inside, which smacks you in the face as a major improvement of the team defensively this year under Justin Morgan. The Titans constantly turned blokes under, starting with Konrad Hurrell early in the game but the Warriors stay engaged from the inside and don't allow holes to appear as often as they had done before. I like the Mannering/Tevaga combination here, they are both effort players who rely more on their determination instead of their physical attributes and they gave the Warriors defence plenty of mobility.
Hearing the news of Issac Luke's injury would have caused concern for Warriors fans who still reckon their team had a sniff of a Premiership this season and Luke's absence will be a big blow. In saying that, we have been given many examples this season of the quality of the depth in the playing roster at Mt Smart and the work of Jazz Tevaga and Nathaniel Roache in absorbing the loss of Luke for the Titans game was impressive.
We've debated who should play fullback, essentially debating which young gun of ours out of Fusitua and Tui Lolohea should do what. On the Gold Coast, Tevaga started and played 41 minutes with his sound defensive work laying a platform form which Roache could come on and add a spark to the Warriors around the ruck area. Bask in this folks, there's plenty of talent at Mt Smart.
A few aspects of Shaun Johnson's work and how he combined with Lolohea caught the eye, as did Lolohea's classy touches of skill. I've thought that Johnson is at his best when he's getting the ball two passes off the ruck, not at first-receiver and this usually means that Johnson gets the footy out on the right edge with Thomas Leuluai playing halfback as was the case here...
Leuluai, Johnson, Lolohea - peep the space in front of Johnson and Lolohea.
Johnson has looked far slicker on the right edge than anywhere else on the field and most of the time this is because he's getting the footy with more time and space, thanks to playing a few passes wider. What's interesting is that Lolohea had another try assist, once again setting up Fusitua to score and any time Johnson gets the footy with some space in front of him and Lolohea outside him, the Warriors look super threatening.
This was the Warriors at their best, oozing chemistry on the back of their power game through the middle. If the Warriors can roll out performances like this repeatedly through the final stage of the season then sure, they could emerge as one of the more feared teams in the NRL Finals.
Hold your horses though, this was a mighty fine Warriors effort for sure, yet I reckon the Titans played into the Warriors hands a wee bit as their big forwards weren't able to maintain a pace and ferocity of the Warriors through the middle. Plus Hayne Mania was live, in full effect. This is the benchmark for the Warriors, this game right here. This is what we want the Warriors to serve up each and every week, the issue is whether they can dish this up on a consistent basis.