Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: Good Finals Prep
But youz might not be mud in a few weeks.
However you want to slice this pie, Aotearoa Warriors win over Penrith Panthers was a fairly breezy 80 minutes of footy for the Mt Smart grim reapers. Mt Smart has been a graveyard for most Australian clubs this season and while there are a bunch of layers to that round 24 win, instead of the Warriors snatching the Panthers souls during the game, it felt as though the Panthers had their souls snatched upon arrival to Aotearoa.
Nuance and layers are the buzzwords this week. I don't want you to get it twisted that this game was a simple equation - just because Penrith had their souls snatched before the game even started. This was a complex game, an 80 minutes of footy that doesn't lend itself to the simple headlines of mainstream media.
That first layer of nuance centres around the Panthers. Before we start celebrating anything that the Warriors did, we need to recognise that the Panthers have issues and those issues have evolved from a major drama off the field, into poor performances on the field. Former coach Anthony Griffin was sacked as the Panthers won games, but those wins covered up flaws in their performances. Now with Cameron Ciraldo, they have lost their last two games and were also without James Maloney.
Many of the Warriors tries probably wouldn't have been scored against better opposition, or a team that is fully tuned in. Hence, I'm cautious to go all in on celebrating the Warriors attack, or even much of their defence because it would be silly to do so from a game in which the opposition is in the middle of a shit-storm.
Righto, so how did the Panthers almost suss out a comeback?
The only Warriors who played 80 minutes, were the backs. Issac Luke was the only forward to play over 70 minutes and there's no coincidence here as the senior forwards were given a rest late in the game. Tohu Harris played 68mins and Simon Mannering 56mins, neither was brought back on to the field after being take off, while Adam Blair did have two stints but played just 68mins overall.
This makes it difficult to judge what went down in the last quarter, other than another nod to coach Stephen Kearney for spreading the game time. Kearney has done this all season, in all positions and his willingness to roll the changes when the game is sealed, gives everyone a taste of footy and eases unnecessary workload.
Harris was the most notable performer, in his return from injury. I had Harris down as the most influential Warriors player, the type of player and performance that is swiftly overlooked by mainstream media who get whipped into the Shaun Johnson, or Roger Tuivasa-Sheck frenzy. His numbers are fantastic; 16runs/161m, 61 post contact metres, an offload, along with 3 passes which were mainly passes with beautiful hands to execute an overlap.
There's no stat for dominant tackles though, no stat for how many tackles Harris wrestled an opponent on to their back. Nor is there a stat for how Harris' late footwork gets him between defenders. These aspects of Harris' play are easily overlooked, but the defensive work, which also includes his work in following the play, never leaving an inside shoulder exposed etc. With Harris there, the Warriors have another slick operator without the footy, a leader in that department as well as someone who can make the opposition pay if they are 3 vs 3 down the right edge, let alone if Harris has an overlap; Harris' skip to the outside is nek level.
With Harris back, Adam Blair moved to left edge. This gave the Warriors a 'back row' of Blair, Mannering and Harris, which is dynamite. I don't even wanna bring up Blair's stats, because his statistical work was almost non-existent, but Blair is as important as Mannering or Harris in that trio. Whether there stats are impressive or not, these should all be judged on intangibles, their effort. Things that the Warriors have always fell short in, now they have a trio of forwards who epitomise this and lead by example.
What was funky though, was that two tries saw Mannering drift out to the edges and play a major role in setting up a David Fusitu'a try on the right and Mason Lino's try. Remember that Mannering is playing as a middle forward, with Harris on the right and Blair on the left, then peep these tries and you'll see that they are very similar attacking schemes.
On the right, Mannering gets the ball out the back with Harris running a decoy, then moving it wider to suss an overlap:
On the left, Mannering gets the ball out the back with Blair running the decoy, only that this time Mannering gets a bump and then shifts the footy to Lino back on the inside:
Regardless of Penrith's defensive effort and intensity, this usage of Mannering has largely been kept under the radar this season. That's mainly because of the ins and outs of weekly selection, which I reckon was hugely influenced by the absence of Blake Green this week, but the variety of attacking schemes that we have seen this season is immense. Such variety in structure, gives the Warriors an enticing upside against better defences.
Such slick execution in unstructured footy gives the Warriors an enticing upside against better defences as well. One of Fusitu'a's tries came from pure instinct to pounce on a lose ball, then shift it wide without thought and with nice execution, which just just as much a staple of Warriors play this season as their defence or funky attacking schemes. To do so, you need a mentality and understanding to shift, but most importantly you need players with the skills to execute and whether it's Mannering, Jazz Tevaga and Issac Luke in the middle, or Blair and Harris out wide; skill is in abundance.
Skill? How about five Warriors having a kick of the footy? Peta Hiku had 2 kicks, while David Fusitu'a and Ken Maumalo had a kick each and the halves shared a 5/7 split in Johnson's favour. Johnson took care of the long kicks and was responsible for a low key frustrating passage of play before half-time when it was set for set and Johnson nailed two or three kicks right down Dallin Watene-Zelezniak's throat.
Penrith ended up winning that passage, with Josh Mansour scoring a fairly lucky try just before half-time. The Warriors responded with a try right after half-time to snatch back momentum, but the inability of Johnson to find turf gave the Panthers better field position and I'd suggest that this was a product of Green's absence. Johnson got the kick-pressure on him because Penrith could load up knowing he'd be the kicker and Watene-Zelezniak could easily read what was going to happen.
The duties were shared nicely though, it's just that the long kicks were done by Johnson. Lino had 38 touches to Johnson's 44, reflected the split in kicking and although much of the play went down the Warriors right - Harris 18 touches vs Blair's 5, Hiku 16 touches vs Kata's 12 touches - Lino was an eager and effective runner of the footy with 9runs/78m.
Hiku taking his chance is also kinda interesting. With 2 try assists in setting up the Fus and the right edge in general getting back to their sublime work of earlier in the season (Johnson, Harris, Hiku, Fusitu'a), Hiku showed his value in attack. That combination though of Hiku defending alongside Harris, is most important here as Harris helps Hiku a lot defensively and the right edge in general know how to work together to cover any misses.
To come back, full circle to the Panthers not really showing up ready for a slug-fest, there were no stand out Warriors big boppers. Harris was the only forward who averaged over 10m/run, wait, Isaiah Papali'i had 1run/11m ... get the point? Even Issac Luke's 10 dummy half runs only averaged out to 7.6m/run.
The Warriors big boppers didn't need to be overly dominant and this wasn't a case of Tuivasa-Sheck and Maumalo filling the void either - Maumalo was rather quiet with just 110m from 14runs. The big boppers definitely did their job in laying the platform, allowing the Warriors to hit their edges where the damage was done.
Damage done where the Panthers were defending in isolation, where defensive systems and individual efforts are tested the most. Every time the Warriors went wider, they enjoyed success and while this can be an aspect of their style in the Finals, their Finals opposition will be far better prepared than the Panthers were.
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Peace and love 27.