Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: Handling Mid-Season Business
We back tho
After seven weeks of win-loss footy, Aotearoa Warriors have strung back to back wins together. Such inconsistencies after a strong start to the season would have had a few folk around Aotearoa nervous about the legitimacy of their team in 2018, which always comes back to your personal perspective and whether you're of the negative or positive variety.
During that up and down run, the Warriors lost to Brisbane Broncos, Melbourne Storm, Sydney Roosters and South Sydney Rabbitohs. All four of those teams are in top-8 and the constant noise about the blowout loss to Storm, Broncos and Rabbitohs was a major point of conjecture, which can be immediately countered by the fact that the Warriors bounced back after each of those losses to win the next game.
Also during that up and down run, the Warriors beat the best team in the NRL thus far (Dragons) and handled their business againts Wests Tigers and Parramatta Eels who both sit in the bottom-8. This flows nicely into the back to back wins for the Warriors and what victories over Manly Sea Eagles and North Queensland Cowboys mean in the grand scheme of things; wins over bad footy teams.
Wins must be celebrated, but the reaction to the Warriors win over Manly was especially weird and yet completely understandable given the extremes in how the media view the Warriors. With a full-strength backline and give or take a few minor tweaks, a full-strength forward pack, the Warriors dominated Manly. That shouldn't be viewed as anything more than a good team defeating a mediocre team and Manly also had the Trbojevic brothers not only backing up from Origin, but backing up in Christchurch.
What I'm trying to say here is that the win over Manly shouldn't have been reason for any new hype, just job done. Given the LWLWLWL results of the previous weeks, beating Manly was nothing more than status-quo.
The win over in Townsville was a wee bit different though as it was a classic 'find a way to win' win. We've seen the Warriors enjoy these wins before and the win over Canberra Raiders earlier in the season springs to mind as a recent example, although the Warriors found a way to beat North Queensland Cowboys through their defence.
We know that the Warriors won't churn out sublime performances every week and especially not when key spine players are in and out of the team as we've had recently with Shaun Johnson and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. In Townsville, the Warriors scored 22 points without playing close to their best and then clinched the game with their defence.
That's just as good, if not better than the razzle dazzle that was on display against Manly.
Two wins over mediocre teams and the Warriors will lose more games. All of this is part of the journey through an NRL season, none of which requires an overreaction negatively or positively.
In terms of personnel, we continue to see fantastic versatility on display and I'm continuously impressed with how this Warriors group is equipped to handle the various scenarios that are thrown their way. Peta Hiku has plugged holes, Gerard Beale continues to do whatever the team needs him to do at centre or wing and an injury to Solomone Kata saw Karl Lawton get game time at left centre vs Cowboys.
Chris Satae played 24 minutes vs Cowboys, the most mins/game of the season for him and the last two games have seen Satae register 20+ minutes after his three previous appearances were all less than 20mins. The Warriors have also won 4 of the 5 games that Satae has played.
Isaiah Papalii has also strung together two 80min games in the last two weeks, that's not the first time he's done it this season though as he did the same in rounds 8 and 9. Papalii's recent 80mins effort have however come with Simon Mannering settling into a middle rotation coming off the bench, resulting in Mannering and Blair both playing over 50 minutes; vs Cowboys, Blair played 53mins and Mannering 56mins.
This ensures that either Blair or Mannering is on the park most of the time, if not together. With that core, coach Stephen Kearney can focus on rotating the punch of James Gavet, Agnatius Paasi, Bunty Afoa and Satae around Mannering and Blair. I was super curious about Mannering's usage upon his return and while there is still plenty of room to tinker with the rotation, plus other lads like Leivaha Pulu and Sam Lisone lurking, there could still be more tweaks to the rotation. The basic premise right now though appears to sprinkle the power around the leaders of Blair and Mannering.
I've run through my thoughts on the Aotearoa Kiwis squad here, but just from a Warriors perspective, I'm chuffed with the situation regarding Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Shaun Johnson and Tohu Harris. As all three are premier Warriors players, to give them two weeks or 10 days to chill, on the back of the recent bye round, is hugely beneficial and it ensures that they are able to fix up niggles, or generally refresh.
In no way do I think the silly club vs country narrative that the mainstream media roll out, reflects poorly on those three players. Nor do I think that this decision was made by the players themselves as they would have been advised by the club, of the what the best decision would be. The club has no obligation to release key players, who have all battled various injuries this season to play a game in USA.
The prize is Finals footy and then an NRL Premiership. Mid-season ups and downs mean little with the bigger goal in mind and with that perspective, having our key players fit and healthy is the priority.
Hit an ad to support the Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan.
Or jump on Patreon and support the Niche Cache directly, we look after the Patreon homies.
Peace and love 27.