The twilight years of Benji Marshall's career are proving to be just as funk as his prime years, capped off with a return to Wests Tigers for next season. Having shown that he's still a valuable squad member and can still - rather easily - play at a high level, Marshall is perfectly executing a graceful run towards retirement in which he's signing one-year deals that benefit all parties.

Brisbane Broncos needed a veteran half to offer depth to their young trio of play-makers and thanks to injuries and Origin, Marshall gave Wayne Bennett a reliable figure to call upon. Not only that, but Marshall has embraced a bench utility role and he's spread plenty of good vibes by slotting into a limited role with Brisbane without fuss; just play your role.

Now it's the Tigers turn and it's hard not to be excited about the roster the Tigers are building. They've signed Ben Matulino and Russell Packer to cover the losses of Aaron Woods and Ava Seumanufagai, Josh Reynolds joins the club next season and Ivan Cleary snapped up Tuimoala Lolohea mid-season.

Tigers fans should enjoy the pivot from a talented group of youngsters towards a more experienced, grizzly outfit. From our #KiwiNRL perspective, the Tigers will boast a rather incredible collection of kiwi funk and we could be watching the #KiwiNRL takeover escalate to new levels as there's a fair chance that the Tigers will roll out a team that consists of a #KiwiNRL majority. Here's a possible Tigers team for 2018, with #KiwiNRL cuzzies highlighted:

Tuimoala Lolohea*
Malakai Watene-Zelezniak*, Esan Marsters*, Taane Milne*, David Nofoaluma
Benji Marshall*, Luke Brooks
Ben Matulino*, Matt McIlwrick*, Russell Packer*
Chris Lawrence, Josh Aloiai*
Elijah Taylor*
Bench: Josh Reynolds, Matt Eisenhuth, Alex Twal, Sauaso Sue.

If the stars align, we could also chuck Michael Chee-Kam in there and the team above features nine #KiwiNRL players, 10 if you include Chee-Kam. With a full #KiwiNRL crew, we could see the Tigers roll out 10/17 players from Aotearoa and for those who ain't good with the mathematics, that means that there could be more #KiwiNRL lads than Aussies ... at an Aussie club. So why you trippin' about the Warriors so much?

Cleary will have a few selection conundrums to iron out over the off-season, mainly revolving around Lolohea. Lolohea has steadily been building a combination with Luke Brooks this season, but now Marshall and Reynolds have been signed and both are perhaps better halves options than Lolohea - even despite Lolohea's nice form and development under Cleary.

My preference is for Lolohea to keep on building with Brooks, but the departure of James Tedesco leaves the Tigers without a fullback and Lolohea is the likeliest option to move to fullback. The major positive here is that Lolohea will have a full off-season to suss out a positional shift and he'll be learning the craft from Cleary, who was a fullback himself. Prior to the battle between Ivan and Nathan Cleary a week ago, Ivan highlighted how he had instilled aspects of Nathan's game in him that would translate to NRL success. Things like support play and running the footy, lessons that I am confident will be drilled into Lolohea.

The development Lolohea has shown under Cleary has been immense, so I'm eager to see how this morphs into Lolohea's development as a fullback. Everything is pointing towards Lolohea making more improvements and possibly blossoming into a low key gun fullback, allowing the Tigers to absorb the loss of Tedesco as best as they can.

The likeliest scenario for Marshall is that he owns a bench utility role or doesn't play a whole lot. Don't sleep on the possibility that Marshall could start in the halves and Reynolds could come off the bench though, as there's no one in the NRL who is better suited to a bench utility spot than Reynolds. The Tigers have paid a lot of money for Reynolds, which will cause the traditional NRL media to assume he will play in the halves, but there's nothing wrong with paying Reynolds to impact games from the bench.

Consider what Reynolds' niche is; energy, game-changing plays, aggression, x-factor.

This is especially relevant in the current NRL climate where speed and energy in the middle of the field can tear teams apart. So to have Reynolds come on and spaz-out for 40 minutes would give the Tigers a massive boost around half-time and/or late in games. Again, people will assume that because money is being spent on Reynolds that he has to fit into a box, but when you consider the strengths/weaknesses of Marshall and Reynolds, Reynolds could be highly influential in a roaming role.

As long as there is as big a #KiwiNRL presence as possible, as consistently as possible, I'll be happy. Cleary is loving himself some #KiwiNRL and he is low key playing a mastermind role in the #KiwiNRL takeover. After Benji started the #KiwiNRL takeover years ago, he's back with the Tigers and we could be witnessing the takeover climb a few levels swiftly.

Enjoy the #KiwiNRL propaganda? Hit an ad to show your support.

Or head over to Patreon and become a Niche Cache Patron, where you'll be helping us broadcast the #KiwiNRL Takeover.