Ol' mate Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and his lovely missus are having a baby huh?

Congrats to the lad and I honestly consider Tuivasa-Sheck as South Auckland's finest young athlete rocking around at the moment, but his absence for the Warriors does change my feelings for their game against Parramatta Eels. With Stephen Kearney making a few changes to his team, despite not having Shaun Johnson back, I was super confident that the Warriors would be able to settle back into their style of play against an Eels team that doesn't appear to be good enough to keep up with the Warriors attacking style, nor trouble the Warriors defence.

Sans Tuivasa-Sheck, that confidence is a wee bit dented. 

Any Warriors team without Tuivasa-Sheck's class and perhaps most notably, his graft and workload in running the footy, isn't going to be as good as they could otherwise be. Yet I still believe that the Warriors will be able to revert back to executing their game plan and that should be too good for the Eels.

How Kearney deals with Tuivasa-Sheck's absence will be interesting. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad has been called up and NRL.com has him listed at fullback, although Gerard Beale made the cut to stay on the extended bench and I suspect that we'll see Peta Hiku move to fullback, with Beale sliding into centre. 

Otherwise David Fusitua would be an option, with Nicoll-Klokstad or Beale coming into the wing position. Fusitua and Hiku are decent options to fill Tuivasa-Sheck's role and having such a strong outside backs group, including Nicoll-Klokstad and Beale, again allows the Warriors to absorb the ins and outs of a long NRL season.

Whatever way Kearney goes, we will have the opportunity to see Nicoll-Klokstad or Beale get their first run of the season. We'll be graced with seeing Fusitua or Hiku start at fullback and this backline reshuffle is going to add another level of funk to this game for Warriors fans.

I'm eager to see the Warriors settle back into doing what they do best, because they have the troops on deck to do so. Of course, playing without Tuivasa-Sheck and Johnson means we won't see the full Warriors style of footy that we've seen in abundance this season, but with Issac Luke starting and Jazz Tevaga on the bench, we are back to what I consider to be the best balance in the middle

Regular readers know how I view the Warriors at their best; shifting the footy from edge to edge through passes, offloading and keeping the ball in play for longer with each tackle. 
Luke is crucial to that.

Not only is Luke an absolute gun running the footy, his offloads and passes that come after running the footy force the defence to make another effort. 

With Luke playing 80 minutes, Tevaga plays as a middle forward and while he has a job to do in carting the footy up-field, his passing and offloading helps the Warriors shift the footy. The Warriors have rolled out a middle trio of Tevaga, Adam Blair and Simon Mannering at the same time this season, which is incredibly hard working and more importantly; skillful.

The strength of the Warriors this season has been their mobility and skill throughout the team.

Getting back to the Luke/Tevaga scheme, should enable the Warriors to move a weak Eels defence around, test their fitness and mental fortitude. Getting back to this will also limit the defensive pressure that the Eels can put on Blake Green and Mason Lino; it's no wonder these two weren't very good last week as there was nothing done to fatigue the Roosters, limiting their energy and enthusiasm without the footy.

Green will captain the team and he'll have to showcase his control, leadership and precision. I reckon this will be more about Lino stepping up in support of Green though as Lino has struggled to adapt to life starting in the NRL each week, after doing a great job filling in as a unknown quantity. Everyone knows about Lino now and he's been targeted with and without the footy, now the Warriors need Lino to mature and play a near-equal hand to Green.

There is also the selection of Chris Satae on the bench, with Sam Lisone dropping out. There was no information about Lisone being injured or anything and it appears that Lisone hasn't done enough throughout the start of the season to genuinely seal that bench spot, especially as he has only averaged 28.8 minutes/game. 

Only four Warriors have averaged fewer minutes/game than Lisone and they are Albert Vete, Joseph Vuna, Sam Cook and Satae; four guys who have just played one or two games.

Satae's inclusion gives the Warriors a bit more size on the bench and with Tevaga, Blair and Mannering in the team, there's no real need for Lisone's ball-playing. Lisone doesn't offload the footy (0.1off/game) and barely gets a tackle-bust (0.6tb/game), so when you start to ponder how competitive it is for bench spots and what Lisone offers, this could be a defining moment of the season for Lisone.

It seems as though there is only one bench spot up for grabs as I view Tevaga, Mannering and James Gavet as mandatory bench selections, and now Satae gets his chance to push his case. Plus, all of this is coming with Leivaha Pulu out injured and I'd have Pulu in my top-17 as well, taking that vacant bench spot. 

Interesting times as we suss out what the best 17 may look like for the Warriors.

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Peace and love 27.