We are halfway through the 2018 NRL season and if you asked around your group of homies about the best possible Aotearoa Warriors team of 17, you'd get a few different answers. While there are many certainties in the Warriors roster, there are far too many niggly selection or usage queries combined with general player vs player for a top-17 spot, for anyone with a brain in their noggin' to believe that the Warriors are anywhere near the finished product.

I definitely don't view the Warriors style of footy as the finished product either, resulting in two major aspects of a footy club being clouded in immense uncertainty. Considering that the Warriors are 8-4 and have shown that they are a legit top-8 team, those uncertainties can only really be viewed as a positive and by the time finals footy rolls around, the sorting process should be sussed out.

Obviously style of play and execution are directly related to the personnel decisions that face coach Stephen Kearney. Much of the worst footy played this season has come with the Warriors missing numerous players through injury, leading me to another obvious note as no one can predict injuries. All of what you'll read here is based on assuming everyone is healthy and one injury could change the whole situation regarding a player, or combination.

What I will say about the injuries is that the 2018 Warriors are far better equipped to deal with injuries than any Warriors team I can remember. This is not only due to having a stronger roster, there is also greater versatility in the playing group. Players such as Simon Mannering, Leivaha Pulu, Peta Hiku, Jazz Tevaga, Karl Lawton, Adam Blair, Isaiah Papalii, Bunty Afoa and Agnatius Paasi can cover multiple positions; in the modern NRL this is crucial as concussions and injuries in-game mean you need to be able to adapt swiftly without losing too much quality.

I reckon there are two major selection conundrums for coach Kearney; Gerard Beale's role and the make up of the bench.

Another weird Warriors related tweet from the archives

That's 2 tweets (Adam Blair + Gerard Beale) linking them with moves to Warriors, years before they actually moved https://t.co/E5cG2tiAG1
— The Niche Cache (@thenichecache) June 2, 2018

Beale showed some serious juice in his first Warriors appearance, far more zip and power than I expected him to have. With plenty of NRL experience, Beale is a certified NRL player and should be playing each week, which doesn't quite fit with Solomone Kata and Peta Hiku playing centre. Also complicating matters is the fantastic form of Ken Maumalo and Maumalo is easily the most improved Warrior this season, perhaps a contender for most improved across the entire NRL.

Maumalo now catches everything with ease and routinely earns quick play-the-balls through his beastly carries, sealing his spot on the wing. I had thought that Beale could take Maumalo's spot, but Maumalo has risen to the challenge and to sprinkle some more funk into this equation; having Beale or Hiku on the bench doesn't seem likely with Jazz Tevaga being low key crucial to the Warriors style of footy.

Beale or Hiku would be decent bench options as they can cover all backline positions and at a pinch could go nuts in the middle. With Tevaga and to a lesser extent, Karl Lawton proving effective off the bench and Maumalo commanding selection, this comes down to three centres competing for two spots.

If I was forced to pick, I'd go with Beale and Hiku. I still beleive that Kata is rather limited in how he plays centre as he is a run-first centre, which doesn't compliment Maumalo - give Maumalo the footy! Kata doesn't have much of a passing game and he has more errors than offloads this season (7 vs 4) and for some context, Hiku has 4 errors vs 29 offloads. Kata is also 2nd in penalties conceded with 8, while Hiku has conceded just 2 penalties this season.
Beale has only played 2 games, so it's too small a sample size to judge anything. Even then, I'd put Beale's experience and the fact that you know what you are likely to get out of Beale every week, as a major advantage over Kata.

While I'm at it; David Fusitua leads the Warriors in errors with 14 and of the seven players with 7+ errors, three of them are Fusitua, Kata and Maumalo.

Fusitua's error/offload ratio is terrible with 14 errors and 4 offloads and Maumalo's is reasonably poor with 7 errors and 5 offloads. They are fairly similar to Kata, although Fusitua and Maumalo offer a lot more than Kata in other areas of the field. Fusitua and Maumalo have proven themselves to be defensively sound, under the high ball and also operating in the jamming defensive system, plus they also play a key role in helping the Warriors get down the field, speeding up their play.

Maumalo is 1st in run metres and Fusitua is 4th, Kata is 7th. More importantly though, Maumalo averages 9.33m/run, Fusitua averages 9.24m/run and Kata averages 8.81m/run.

The errors for Fusitua especially, will be a work-on for Kearney and getting him below 1 error/game (he's averaging 1.2 errors/game now) will be the aim. Fusitua makes up for this in his try-scoring and Maumalo is perhaps the most well-rounded of the three, while Kata doesn't have any major positives to wash away his negatives.

As for Hiku, well his 3.7 missed tackles/game haven't been detrimental to the Warriors who have still managed to win 8 of 12 games with Hiku's rather extaordinary tackle-missing abilities. You would have to assume that Kearney and his staff are sussing this out during this two week break, it's also important to note that Mason Lino leads the Warriors in missed tackles per game with 4.2 and Lino has defended on the right edge alongside Hiku.

Compare Lino to Shaun Johnson, who averages 1.8 mt/game and you can see how the Warriors have been up and down in recent weeks with Johnson out injured. Not only are the missing Johnson's class, they have replaced his 1.8 mt/game with Lino's 4.2 mt/game and the Warriors have spent much of this time with their two worst defenders (Lino and Hiku) defending alongside each other.

For more context; Lino and Hiku are the only Warriors who average 3+ missed tackes/game.
Hiku's positives out-weight his negatives though as he's a freakish offloader and extremely busy in attack. Hiku is 1st in offloads/game and 3rd in runs/game, plus he barely concedes a penalty or makes an error.

All of that has me leaning towards Beale starting at centre, instead of Kata. This will be a very interesting situation to observe as Kearney will have to pull the trigger on this decision soon, to allow continuity and chemistry leading into the finals. The conundrum at centre has a lot more clarity to it than what's happening on the bench with the forwards, I'll get into that tomorrow.

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Peace and love 27.