As far as poster-boys for the 'leaving the NZ Warriors for bigger and better things' theory go, Sio Siua Taukeiaho is up there with Sosaia Feki as the headline acts. Siliva Havili can't be slept on in that regard either as he enjoyed a highly successful 2016 reserve grade campaign, yet while Feki was winning an NRL Premiership ring and Havili was celebrating the reserve grade double, Taukeiaho was rehabbin' a serious knee injury.

The story of Taukeiaho is well-rehearsed these days; he won titles with the Junior Warriors but couldn't get a run in the NRL with the Warriors so headed over to the Roosters where he had to battle injury, before exploding with more game time at the Chooks.

At the Warriors, Taukeiaho was one of those weird in-betweeners. He was athletic enough to play centre and was big enough to play as a second-row edge forward, yet he wasn't good enough, or healthy enough to really establish himself in either position. This type of player is a valuable commodity in the NRL, especially with less interchanges as a lad who can cover centre and second-row gives the coach options to absorb an injury on the wing for example.

Players can get stuck in that 'jack of a few trades and master of none' spot though and that's where a move to the Roosters completely flipped Taukeiaho from a 'tweener, to a Jason Taumalolo clone. Trent Robinson deserves plenty of praise for making the same move that the Cowboys made in moving Taumalolo from the edge to the middle, or from a impact forward to a No.13 who can play big minutes, in block-busting fashion.

This year Taumalolo did the double in winning the Dally M award as well as the Players Champion award, effectively making Taumalolo the MVP of the league. Taumalolo did so by averaging 10.63m/per-carry which is nothing but freakish and those numbers are usually reserve for players who only have to roll through 10-20 minute stints, Taumalolo however averaged 52 mins/per-game this season though.

Compare Taumalolo's numbers in an MVP-season to Taukeiaho's numbers in his 2015 breakout season and things line up favourably for another high quality NRL player from Otara, South Auckland. Taukeiaho averaged 10.89m/per-carry in 2015 which is more than Taumalolo and while Taukieaho's averaged 43mins/per-game in 2015 was almost 10 minutes less than Taumalolo, those numbers at that efficiency is nothing to be scoffed at.

2016 wasn't quite as kind to Taukeiaho, although the signs of what a dominant force he is/could be were there to see. He only played 20 games in 2016 compared to the 27 he played in 2015 and averaged 9.41m/per-carry which is still super handy, this all came with Taukeiaho taking on greater responsibility as he stepped up his minutes from 43mins/per-game to 56.9mins/per-game.

The number of injuries that the Roosters endured stunted their progress in 2016, while also allowing Taukeiaho to blossom as a team-player who oozed class. Of those 20 games Taukeiaho played in 2016, nine of those had him starting at lock with the other 11 games featuring Taukeiaho on the edge or coming off the bench. When you consider the injury troubles of Boyd Cordner and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves last season, having Taukeiaho who can play any position in the forwards is highly beneficial.

We can't sleep on the fact that Taukeiaho played four straight games starting at lock (excluding the round 25 game vs Cronulla in which he injured his knee after 2 minutes) from round 21 onwards, in which the Roosters won three of those games and Taukeiaho had over 10 carries/100m in all four of those games.

Heck, in every game that Taukeiaho started at lock, he did the 10 carries/100m double and given standout performances like round 3 vs Cowboys (80mins, 18 carries, 139m, 42 tackles), or round 17 vs Bulldogs (49mins, 18 carries, 192m, 29 tackles), or round 24 vs Dragons (49mins, 16 carries, 163m, 25 tackles); it's easy to see the scope of what Taukeiaho could do with consistent game time at lock.

Not only can Taukeiaho play big minutes at lock, edge or bench in powerful fashion, he's also a handy goal-kicker. Seriously, imagine Taumalolo kicking goals and you've got Taukeiaho.

Injuries are a wee bit of a problem for Taukeiaho at this stage of his career and any serious comparison between Taukeiaho and Taumalolo are slowed thanks to Taumalolo's durability over a number of seasons. That's super exciting for Taukeiaho though as he'll head into this season with an eye on stacking up games as the Roosters' No.13 and after signing a huge deal to keep him around until the end of 2020, the Roosters have shown all sorts of faith in Taukeiaho. Keep in mind that the likes of Dylan Napa and Kane Evans are coming off-contract after this season and the Roosters will likely need to get one of those two, if not both off their books; the Roosters have shown long-term faith in Taukeiaho over Napa and Evans.

Taukeiaho will have to be at his emphatically powerful best if he wants to hold down that No.13 jersey as the Roosters have a youngster in Nat Butcher who was a star for their Premiership winning Under-20s team. The likes of Otahuhu junior Isaac Liu will be gunning for more minutes and the Chooks signed the wayward Paul Carter who has featured predominantly at lock previously.

The Roosters have a forward roster that is huge, perhaps the biggest group of forwards in the NRL. Taukeiaho is big enough, but what Taukeiaho offers the Roosters is speed and footwork around the ruck. This is what has taken Taumalolo and the Cowboys to new heights, so it's easy to imagine Taukeiaho leading a resurgent Roosters team through 2017.

What Taukeiaho has that Taumalolo doesn't, is that Taukeiaho has and can cover a variety of positions. So while I'd love to see Taukeiaho play every game at lock where he could legit average 50-55 minutes and roll through 15 carries for over 150m, the beauty of Taukeiaho is that he's capable of contributing to his team's success in other areas as well. That kinda makes him the prototype NRL forward.