Ava's a beast, where those minutes come from though is the question.

Jason Taylor was kicked to the curb as Wests Tigers coach, the great Wayne Bennett has come under fire as Brisbane Broncos coach and Des Hasler could very well be out of a job by the time you read this. These little spots of drama obviously have an impact on the respective clubs, however all three of these clubs also have fairly large #KiwiNRL groups and as is always the case from perch in Aotearoa, how these situations impact the kiwi lads could go either way.

The #KiwiNRL group at the Tigers holds little influence over their team and the centre of much of the attention here revolves around Aaron Woods, Mitchell Moses, Luke Brooks and James Tedesco. These four players hold a level of power because they are coming off-contract and apart from Woods - who is their skipper - this is a unique power because the other three probably wouldn't have it if they were signed for the next few years.

Former coach Taylor had been pretty damn favourable to his #KiwiNRL gang throughout his tenure, apart from moving Josh Aloiai back to the bench this season. I was excited to see Aloiai develop after a big season in 2016, however Taylor opted to move Sauaso Sue (Auckland-born but more of a Samoan/Aussie) from the middle to an edge, pushing Aloiai to the bench.

Aloiai did move to start at lock against Melbourne with new coach Andrew Webster in charge, which could offer a funky niche for Aloiai. This however came at the expense of Elijah Taylor, who was on the bench for the weekend's game but he played 60 minutes with Aloiai playing 43 minutes. Everything overlaps here as Canterbury's Matt McIlwrick has enjoyed a starting gig this season, although this only gives him 30-odd minutes of action and the Tigers are instead filling that dummy half hole with a job-doer (sometimes Taylor) or youngin' Jacob Liddle.

Liddle played his first game of the season against Melbourne and with Matt Ballin lurking in reserve grade, it's going to be interesting to see how a new coach could impact McIlwrick's role. McIlwrick has played more than 40 minutes in just one of the Tigers' four games so far, which is hardly an endorsement that he's got that spot locked up for the season.

If Ivan Cleary were to get the Tigers coaching job, it would be fantastic news for Elijah Taylor. Cleary brought Taylor to Penrith from Aotearoa Warriors and Taylor has openly celebrated Cleary as a coach, so fingers crossed that Cleary gets the job and can then allow Taylor to settle in a key position.

Aloiai, Taylor and Wainuiomata junior Ava Seumanufagai are kinda just eating at each other's minutes as middle forwards these days. If Aloiai is going to be used as a middle forward, then the Tigers have these three kiwi lads along with Aaron Woods and Tim Grant. Woods, Taylor and Grant are the most capable of playing big minutes, so how these middle forwards are rotated will be interesting to watch, especially for Seumanufagai who has steadily improved and deserves plenty of game time.

Michael Chee-Kam has sealed a centre spot over Jamal Idris and Chee-Kam has played 80 minutes in his last two games. This came via Tim Simona's dramas and it's a nice boost after mainly coming off the bench last season, there's scope for Chee-Kam to do that job for the rest of the season and after drifting between being an edge forward/centre, Chee-Kam could nail a position down.

Up in Brisbane, the only #KiwiNRL angle to the Bennett weirdness is that Jordan Kahu kicked the field-goal to give Brisbane the win over Canberra. This was viewed as a bit of an issue because of the situation regarding Anthony Milford and some thought that Kahu taking the droppie over Milford reflected poor on Milford.

Kahu's comments after the game poured cold water over that, sort of. Kahu said that he'd been tasked with that job to take some pressure off his halves and perhaps you could think that this is because Milford's buggered by the end of the game. I prefer the view that we are now seeing Kahu's full range of skills on display and these are skills that I've talked about so much, mainly because that's the word coming out of Brisbane. Kahu can genuinely do it all and in the past two seasons we have seen him rise through the levels of showing off these skills.

If Bennett was really losing his 'aura' then Adam Blair certainly wouldn't be playing with the effort or intensity that he's got at the moment. Blair is just as much a Bennett-child as any of the others and he's averaging 112.3m/per-game, 1.3 offloads and 21.3 tackles, he's also coming fresh off that Raiders game (after the Bennett dramas) where he took 17 carries for 161m. We don't really expect those numbers from Blair, but he's putting in some hefty - and dynamic - work for Bennett.

Hello, World!

The Doggies huh? This is an ongoing situation because it's all rumours and whisper right now so we will need to just kick back until a decision is made. What I can say is that Hasler was the bloke who recruited Brad Abbey and he's brought Abbey in as fullback with William Hopoate out injured, opting to go with Abbey instead of the Morris twin who does the wing/fullback thing.

That automatically gives Hasler some #KiwiNRL brownie points for giving Abbey his opportunity and Hasler has also continued to give Raymod Faitala-Mariner game time off the bench. Faitala-Mariner has mainly just been used to give Greg Eastwood a break, with Faitala-Mariner hovering around 25 minutes and Eastwood playing 55 minutes in his last two games.

While a new direction at the Tigers could provide a dramatic shift (positive or negative) for the likes of Aloiai, Seumanufagai, Taylor and McIlwrick, whatever happens with Hasler won't change things too much at the Bulldogs. The quality of the starting group is such that guys like Abbey and Faitala-Mariner simply have to know their role; not too many coaches are going to select Abbey over Hopoate, or Faitala-Mariner over Eastwood/Josh Jackson.

The bloke to watch will be Sam Kasiano, the enigma. Hasler has used Kasiano in brief spells, he's given him big minutes, he's used him through the middle, he's used him wider, he's given him freedom to show off his sublime skills and he's had him doing his battering-ram job as well. Hasler has done it all with Kasiano and while it's yielded moments of brilliance, you could argue that Hasler hasn't quite figured Kasiano out, to the point where Kasiano contributes to a successful Bulldogs team.