Dummy half was an interesting position this season as Issac Luke joined the club, finally giving the New Zealand Warriors a dynamic dummy half who has been among the best in the NRL for a number of years now. Luke joined Roger Tuviasa-Sheck as high profile recruits this season, but Luke was the last man standing after Tuivasa-Sheck went down injured which only piled the pressure on Luke. 

What we also saw this season was that the club is well positioned to fill a hole if Luke is out injured or suspended, or when Luke moves on from the club. Jazz Tevaga and Nathaniel Roache both got game time at hooker this season as the club showcased it's depth here and what's handy is that Tevaga and Roache go about their work at dummy half in slightly different ways.

Issac Luke

Just like Ben Matulino, Luke has been one of the convenient scapegoats of the Warriors 2016 season. This is a wee bit weird as viewing Luke's 2016 season as a disappointment means that people though Luke would come in and immediately make the Warriors a better side, a quality top-8 if not a top-4 team. 

We'll start with some facts about Luke's work this season; Luke obviously led the Warriors in dummy half runs and finished the season in 3rd in dummy half runs across the entire NRL, while ranking 1st in offloads with 24 which was five more than Cameron Smith who was 2nd in dummy half offloaders with 19. Luke was 6th in tackle busts for the Warriors, 2nd in offloads and he was one of 10 Warriors players to play 20 games or more.

Luke's go-to is scooting out of dummy half to make plenty of metres and he's got a powerful carry to go with his speed off the work, often sparking a Warriors attacking movement by running, bumping off a tackle and then offloading in the follow up tackle. This is a staple of what Luke does whether it was with the Rabbitohs or with the Kiwis, the difference between Luke at the Rabbitohs - harking back to their Premiership campaign - and the Warriors was the ruthlessness of the Rabbitohs forwards in plowing through the middle along with Greg Inglis, before or after Luke made a bust up the middle.

As I explained in the Warriors' prop debrief, those middle forwards were pretty stink this season and offered very little go-forward, especially one pass off the ruck. The Warriors simply didn't have a powerful forward pack working in conjunction with Luke - 3rd in the NRL for dummy half runs means he's still scootin' a whole lot - as they aren't an overly fast bunch of middle forwards, nor do they have great footwork. Tuivasa-Sheck's staple is getting in to take a hit up one pass off the ruck, using his speed to get behind the ruck area and whacking big forwards with his electric footwork; I still maintain that Luke and Tuivasa-Sheck will be a rampant force for the Warriors next season.

Luke was 2nd to Shaun Johnson in missed tackles for the Warriors (55) and compared to Cameron Smith and Josh Hodgson who made 9 and 6 errors this season respectively, Luke's 13 errors were a bit high, even though Michael Ennis has made 19 errors thus far. 

I say that, to say that Luke certainly wasn't the Warriors best player and there were many moments this season from Luke that caused some head-scratching. However, it appears as though some people had misguided expectations about Luke's arrival at Mt Smart. Luke did many of the same things he did with the Rabbitohs this season, it's just that the Warriors forward pack sucked and were unable to get any sort of roll-on through the middle in conjunction with the work of Luke out of dummy half.

Jazz Tevaga

The Warriors have unearthed a rugged middle utility in Tevaga and we saw that he's got the skills to cover the hooker position at the NRL level. I reckon Tevaga's game though is more suited to lock, especially with some big boppers (Toafofoa Sipley, James Gavet, Charlie Gubb, Albert Vete, Sam Lisone) defending around him but Tevaga's size probably lends itself more to dummy half than lock right now.

Tevaga is the type of player I want to see in the Warriors' 17 each and every week because he's a bloke who offers something different to the rest of the forwards. His able to cover all the middle positions and play with a level of grit that we haven't seen too much of at Mt Smart, could see him feature heavily off the bench under Stephen Kearney.

Nathaniel Roache

Both Roache and Tevaga played 11 games this season, both also had 21 dummy half runs so it's hard to separate them. Roache is far more similar to Luke in that it is his running game and skill that makes him a dangerous dummy half, which also enable Roache to do a job in the backline when called upon.

There's no real need for Luke to be given a spell as he can roll through 80 minutes fairly easily when at his best (Luke played 80 or more minutes nine times this season), so it's difficult to see where Roache will fit in. Roache still has a fair way to go in his dummy half development - just as Tevaga does as a middle forward - so there is no rush to get Roache some action there and it will probably be a case of waiting for an opportunity for Roache next season. 

What coach Kearney does with Tevaga and Roache next season will be extremely interesting, perhaps one of the aspects of the Warriors 17 that I will be most interested in. Andrew McFadden didn't exactly offer any sort of consistency to these two and I'd suggest that Kearney will keep their roles crystal clear.