There are a few Aotearoa Warriors players who are now entering their prime footy years, guys who now have a few solid years in the NRL to their names. This coincides with them moving into their mid-20s, where they start to genuinely suss out who they are as humans and are able to apply their footy experience into a certain level of comfort where they understand the week in, week out process as well as tactical nuances. David Fusitu'a leads that pack, yes folks; Fusitu'a hasn't hit his peak yet.

In the first few years of his NRL career, Fusitu'a has consistently impressed and while disappointment has filled the cups of downbuzz Warriors fans, even the most Negative Ned would still highlight Fusitu'a as a bright spot of recent years. At 23yrs and with 50-odd games of NRL experience, the NRL is Fusitu'a's oyster and when I ponder Fusitu'a approaching his prime years, I have also settled on Fusitu'a's best position.

Last year I wrote about the opportunities that would come Fusitu'a's way at centre for the Warriors and I was fairly excited to see a player who resembles Greg Inglis get a decent crack at centre. Now I'm writing about Fusitu'a with a fair understanding that Fusitu'a should live on the wing, not because Fusitu'a didn't snap up the opportunities at centre but because the role of centres and wingers in the NRL has changed slightly. 

These tweaks in the roles of these positions along with factors such as Fusitu'a being a high-ball weapon and damaging runner on the first or second hit up; you never see Fusitu'a driven backwards and I've consistently highlighted how Fusitu'a has an uncanny knack for poking his head through the defensive line and landing on his belly for quick play-the-balls.

Simply put; the job of a typical NRL centre is to get the footy to the winger. 

Of course there are exceptions of blokes who are not typical NRL centres,although the likes of Will Chambers, Konrad Hurrell and James Roberts still have high offloading numbers. That suggests that while they have an x-factor, they combine that with distribution.

Solomone Kata may struggle to hold down his left-centre spot for next season with the arrivals of Peta Hiku and Gerard Beale, given that Kata steps off his left foot to run in-field more often than passing the ball to his winger (Ken Maumalo). As Kata does this 80 percent (it feels like 80 percent) of the time, it's no surprise that Kata struggled this season as opposition teams could predict the likeliest outcome when Kata got the footy; this was fresh in year one, year two everyone's ready for it.

This is why I'm happy with Blake Ayshford starting at centre and despite the arrivals of Hiku and Beale, I low key think we'll still see the Ayshford/Fusitu'a combo rolled out on the right. Ayshford will understand fully who the major weapon is in that combo and his job in that combination is to get Fusitu'a the footy, just give the Fus the footy. Or execute your job (decoy runner) in a set-play perfectly, so Shaun Johnson and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck can get Fusitu'a the footy.

That the Ayshford/Fusitu'a combo is already a combo, is also crucial. The more footy they have played together, the slicker their attacking work is and you can never under-estimate the importance of chemistry/intuition/understanding. It's even harder on defence and if you apply that understanding to the defensive scheme, you're dealing with two players who know when to rush up, when to chill and Fusitu'a especially, will have a greater understanding of what Ayshford's going to do, thus he can make the right decision based off of that.

Many people mention Maumalo as the Beast 2.0 (Manu Vatuvei jr). Obviously there are physical similarities, but the way wingers score tries has changed dramatically in the past few years which leads me to believe that Fusitu'a is actually Beast 2.0. This is in the sense that if you took peak-Vatuvei (there were 10 years of peak-Vatuvei) and adapt him to the current NRL, you'd have Fusitu'a. 

It's not super awesome that Maumalo closely resembles Vatuvei as the NRL has moved beyond the steam-rollin' winger. That opens a whole new avenue of intrigue as to what Maumalo will become in the coming seasons, I'll go down that avenue in the coming weeks.

The change of rules regarding the corner-flag mean that instead of steam-rollin' over defenders, or being big enough to bump off defenders to stay in the field of play, now you simply fly to avoid those defenders. The point where Fusitu'a leaves his feet to score a try is the point where Vatuvei would make contact with two or three defenders; they both score the try, just differently given the era of footy.

The idea was the same in that the job of Vatuvei's centre was to get him the footy. Fusitu'a is like Vatuvei in that he has sussed out how to use his physical frame to best score tries and no other outside back at the Warriors is on-par with Fusitu'a in terms of scoring tries in the corner. Fusitu'a is also among the best in the NRL at this and if Fusitu'a is playing centre, you are wasting such a gift.

And that's how I've convinced myself, although it didn't take much convincing.

While I'd like to see Ayshford and Fusitu'a given first crack at taking their combination further, especially with a Warriors team that will undisputedly be better, Hiku and Beale are also simple centres who will feed Fusitu'a. Hiku and Beale can fill either centre or wing, which is a huge asset and part of the reason why they were signed and I also reckon that their signings confirm (Stephen Kearney may still have Fusitu'a at centre) that Fusitu'a will live on the wing.

If Hiku and Beale are used as centres, they are skillful centres who rely on their footy nous instead of physical gifts. Footy nous results in a winger getting all sorts of passes, in all sorts of situations.

Not only is Fusitu'a entering his rugby league prime, he's going to have the players inside him who can put Fusitu'a in favourable positions every game. We've already seen what a gun Fusitu'a is, so the prospect of him leveling-up is juicy and Mt Smart will soon become home of the Fus.

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Peace and love 27.