Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: Dunno What's Going To Happen
Like you, I've got no idea what the next few weeks are going to look like for Aotearoa Warriors on and off the field. To be completely honest, I'm trying to think as little about NRL rugby league matters as possible as I'm generally confused as to how one sports competition thinks they can battle on while the majority of the professional sporting world does the opposite. All of this just makes my head hurt, so I'm doing my best to just let the NRL be weird.
As long as players, officials and staff have their welfare at the forefront then whatever.
As long as the NRL isn't putting the welfare of these folk at risk, just because they can't handle money properly. Otherwise, the NRL is going to be complicit and liable if they decide to play on and those on the frontlines (players etc and not those in boardrooms) get sick.
Any who, guess the NRL flows on.
And the Warriors face Canberra Raiders on the Gold Coast. Not the best match up when looking to show signs of footy life after a rather derelict display against Newcastle Knights as the Raiders are a slick team, full of power, aggression, intensity and skill. The Raiders have kinda become the team that most fans would want the Warriors to resemble as they exude attacking funk, to go with a brutal edge and evidence of defensive growth.
Patrick Herbert and Peta Hiku did what any sane human would do right now and got the fuck out of Australia, returning to the safety of Mother Aotearoa. This opened a spot up on the wing for Adam Pompey and I'm intrigued about the speed and agility of a Pompey/David Fusitu'a edge combination, as neither can really be described as lively - when pondering lively think of Raiders wingers Bailey Simonsson and Nick Cotric.
Adam Keighran comes in at centre and in keeping with this theme of having no clue about what will go down on the GC tomorrow evening, I don't know what Keighran offers as a centre. That's all good, we haven't seen Keighran get such an opportunity and somehow we now get to gauge Keighran's NRL value. I suspect Keighran will line up against Curtis Scott and that's not an easy assignment for Keighran at centre.
Everything is fairly standard in the forward pack, with Eliesa Katoa named to start as an edge forward and Isaiah Papali'i moving back to the bench with Adam Blair starting in the middle. Given that I questioned why coach Stephen Kearney got so cute in chopping and changing these lads around last week, this clarity is an improvement ... although Kearney will no doubt tinker prior to kick off.
I'm very much still in learning mode about the 2020 Aotearoa Warriors and the mayhem around them this week only amplifies this vibe. The Warriors could rally with all this uncertainty, backs against the wall and all that to upset the Raiders and perhaps develop some confidence in what they are doing. As possible, is that the Warriors are horrible and everything in-between those extremes.
There are a few stats that are set in concrete, offering some insights…
In round one, the Warriors had five dummy half runs and the Raiders had 22. That's literally the worst dummy half running team from round one and the best, which isn't solely about the hooker scooting from dummy half and is open to outside backs getting into dummy half and using their speed, power and footwork to make quick metres.
Both Scott and Cotric had 5 dummy half runs and 50+ dummy half metres, meaning that they averaged over 10m/run from dummy half. For the Warriors against Newcastle, Fusitu'a had 1 dummy half run for 1m and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck had 2 dummy half runs for 7m. I highlight these numbers and the disparity, because it outlines a completely different perspective on dummy half running from outside backs that was also evident last season; Raiders had 440 total dummy half runs, Warriors had 249.
I can make all sorts of arguments about my opinion on the importance of dummy half running from outside backs, however I'm eager to sit back and see this in action. When watching this game, stay tuned in to what is happening around the ruck when either team is working the footy out of their own end, usually 30m-50m out from their own try line. Note the amount of times an outside back goes for a scoot and then how effective that scoot was, then we'll see how this impacts the result.
Another aspect of Warriors footy to keep an eye on - still with the outside backs - are the kick-return-metres. Last week the Warriors had 109m in kick returns, which put them 15th (only Manly Sea Eagles were worse) and some of this may be due to more tactics implemented to restrict the likes of Tuivasa-Sheck and Ken Maumalo. Last season, the Warriors ranked 11th in average kick-return-metres and this raises questions of how effective the Warriors are despite the 'big wingers' narrative.
For this game vs Raiders, I'll combine the fact that the Knights are currently 1st in average kick-return-metres (251krm) after their win over the Warriors and the Raiders are 7th (186krm). The Knights enjoyed such huge kick-return numbers thanks to mediocre kicking from Blake Green and Chanel Harris-Tavita, which played into the strengths of Kalyn Ponga who had 109krm vs Tuivasa-Sheck's 40krm.
Note: Maumalo had no kick-return-metres and teams will perhaps kick to Maumalo less.
If the same execution of mid-long range kicks is rolled out by the Warriors, it'll be another tough outing. Ponga's a fabulous runner of the footy, but the Raiders trio of Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Simonsson and Cotric is far better than the Knights back three and if allowed to catch kicks on the full, they'll chew through metres to get the Radiers rolling. Then, the dummy half runs come into play.
Ah and then the Raiders post-contact-metres will have them down the field within a set of six. After one game, the Raiders are one of four teams to average 500+ pcm and obviously this small sample size isn't legit reliable, the Raiders forward pack and entire team is well built for gathering post-contact-metres. All of which stems from how the Warriors finish their sets and how accurate, or clinical their kicking game is.
Other than that, I have no idea what the Warriors are going to get up to.
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Peace and love 27.