#KiwiNRLWahine: NRLW Round Rua
Broncos vs Roosters
Broncos
Starting: Raecene McGregor, Lavinia Gould, Amber Paris-Hall, Rona Peters.
Bench/Extended Bench: Nada.
Roosters
Starting: Kiana Takairangi, Nita Maynard.
Bench/Extended Bench: Nada.
Doc's Word
Once again, Sydney Roosters lost to Aotearoa Warriors in their opening game of NRLW and one of the areas of their game that needs to improve is the action out of dummy half. Kiwi Ferns hooker Nita Maynard only had 2 runs out of dummy half for 13m which isn't enough considering Maynard's best attribute is her speed out of dummy half. Maynard also had 6 missed tackles, which was the most of any Roosters player and while that could be because of Maynard playing all 60 minutes, 84.4 percent tackle efficiency is still too low for a middle defender.
With that in mind, expect the Broncos to target the ruck/middle area with #KiwiNRLWahine Amber Paris-Hall and Rona Peters. Both scored tries last week and racked up a bunch of tackle busts (Paris-Hall had 3, Peters had 4) and with plenty of experience in spine positions, the likes of Raecene McGregor, Ali Brigginshaw and hooker Lavinia Gould will be sending their forwards hard and flat around the Roosters ruck.
McGregor looks to be a nice partner for Brigginshaw in the halves for Brisbane and they shared their duties nicely with McGregor taking 36 touches and 6 kicks, while Brigginshaw had 32 touches and 9 kicks. McGregor also racked up 57m from 6 runs @ 9.5m/run, to showcase her running threat and as McGregor had no tackle busts, yet 20 post-contact-metres, there's a low key physical nature to when McGregor does run the footy.
Warriors vs Dragons
Warriors
Starting: All but Timaima Ravisa.
Bench/Extended Bench: All but Roela Radiniyavuni.
Dragons
Starting: Botille Vette-Welsh, Kimiora Nati, Maitua Feterika.
Bench/Extended Bench: Ngatokotoru Arakua/Lexi Kiriwi.
Doc's Word
No Teuila Fotu-Moala for the Dragons in their remaining games after Fotu-Moala was suspended for three weeks, which is a hefty blow to the Dragons and Fotu-Moala. That could however present more opportunities to Ngatokotoru Arakua, who played 17mins in the loss to Broncos and while Arakua only had 3 runs, her efficiency was on show with 28m from those 3 runs @ 9.33m/run.
Maitua Feterika got through 55mins and churned out some impressive running numbers with 12 runs for 121m @ 10.83m/run, however Feterika also missed 7 tackles with 74 percent tackle efficiency. That's reasonably mediocre, although somewhat understandable considering that Feterika hasn't played much footy through the middle and there should be some decent improvement this weekend vs Warriors.
The Warriors had fantastic usage out of dummy half, led by Krystal Rota's 10 scoots @ 6.2m/run but the variety in their dummy half runners was something crazy for Warriors fans given that lack of dummy half action with the men's team. The five outside backs all had 2+ dummy half runs, with winger Madison Bartlett leading the way via her 6 dummy half runs and the outside backs combined for 20 dummy half runs. I'd suggest that this played a role in the impressive performance from halfback Charntay Poko as the threat from dummy half allow Poko to play with a bit more time and space.
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Peace and love 27.