Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: WTF
As bumbly and fumbly as St George Illawara Dragons were against Aotearoa Warriors, Ken Maumalo's desperate attempt to knock the ball out of Dragons winger Mikaele Ravalawa as he approached an open try-line was the most telling aspect of the Warriors win. It wasn't exactly about keeping the Dragons scoreless as that was more up to the Dragons and the Warriors ended up missing more tackles than their opponent as well, yet the desperation and mana in knocking the ball out of Ravalawa's mits provided a nice gauge of where the Warriors are at.
This is a weird performance to reflect upon as it was about as big a Warriors anomaly as I've ever seen. Apart from patches of their winning streak to start 2018, under Kearney there has not been such a comprehensive performance; high completions, good-enough-defence, beastly physical efforts and a rather clinical attack. Forget those first two games of this season, against the Dragons the Warriors showed up with a completely different energy from the depths of recent seasons.
That deserves aroha, while also understanding that the Dragons really sucked. The Warriors did what was required here to snatch the soul of the Dragons and more than anything negative, I think I'm curious as to whether the Warriors can hit the same markers against better opposition. Diving into some details, there are signs that a greater shift has occurred with the Warriors in Tamworth as this wasn't merely a case of a new energy, attitude or intensity; coach Stephen Kearney genuinely got funky and switched things up.
Take a moment over the next few days to see how people around you react to this Warriors win. Most people will express that it was a great win for the Warriors given what they have been through, that they rallied with their backs against the wall to complete most of their sets and shine with their intensity. That's nice, although the most interesting aspect of this win is that Kearney and other decision-makers actually made moves to put the Warriors in the best position for such a performance.
Mainly, Tohu Harris playing 80 minutes in the middle. Harris played a bunch of different roles at Melbourne Storm, then settled into an edge role at the Warriors and when healthy he has only been used as a middle forward. This literally has not happened before with Harris and the Warriors, obviously it worked wonders because Harris is really good at footy but hasn't quite shown his true abilities with the Warriors. Here is Harris (yellow dot) in the middle early in the game, then late in the game as well...
And here are Harris' stats...
Having Harris and Blair play through the middle offers two mobile lads who are big enough to contain their opposition, along with supreme work-rate. This then allows Isaiah Papali'i and Eliesa Katoa to play on the edges, also two mobile lads who love to get busy. I'll chuck in Katoa's stats below because he was nek level once again, but Papali'i (12 runs) and Katoa both averaged a smidge over 10m/run and having both edge forwards roll out great efficiency with their work-rate is low key lovely.
Katoa...
Also averaging a over 10m/run was Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, from his 25 runs and all, as well as from dummy half. The dummy half numbers are most important for Tuivasa-Sheck as he had 7 runs from dummy half for 76m and that's not just more dummy half runs than Tuivasa-Sheck had in the first two games combined (4); the outside backs combined for 7 dummy half runs in those first two games.
Like Harris playing through the middle, we haven't seen Tuivasa-Sheck as busy out of dummy half too much in recent times. This shouldn't need explaining as we all know of Tuivasa-Sheck's running ability and that's why he averaged 10m per scoot, stacking up the metres and raising the tempo.
Also rather fresh, is Nikorima playing in the halves. The key thing here is Nikorima's speed, which saw him play a major attacking role, while sharing the kicking duties with Blake Green with Nikorima taking 10 kicks and Green 19. Here is Nikorima setting up Katoa for the first try. This is even numbers (4 vs 4), Nikorima's speed enables him to boost past Tariq Sims and target Ben Hunt, who is also dealing with Katoa coming into his vicinity...
For Nikorima's own try, it came from Nikorima scooting out of dummy half (line break and 33m). Side note: I like the idea of different bodies scooting as whether it's Tuivasa-Sheck, Nikorima, Gerard Beale (2 scoots for 20m) or Wayde Eagan, it's a different challenge for the opposition around the ruck. Nikorima saw Cameron McInnes rush up to deal with Jamayne Taunoa-Brown and took off...
That's a classic case of not respecting the dummy half and this can only be exposed when there ain't no scooting. With no dummy half runs, defenders can slide off that problem to load up on the receiver of the pass. With dummy half runs, defenders have to respect that and sit tighter, opening space a bit wider.
Karl Lawton at centre? Again, something fresh ... that wasn't played as Lawton replaced an injured Peta Hiku. This did however showcase Lawton's bench value and teams need to have systems to deal with losing an outside back to concussion/injury, now the Warriors have Lawton who can do a job if called upon. The energy and vigour offered by Lawton was visible at centre and if all goes to plan, Lawton is a nice option to replace Egan mid-game.
Egan wasn't overly spicey out of dummy half (3 runs for 15m). Egan did provide crisp service and made 45 tackles at 95.6 percent in an 80 minute effort.
As we move forward...
I'm short-term intrigued to see if someone like Lachlan Burr comes back into the equation because he's not quite as good as even the youngsters.
I'm also interested in establishing identity. Up to this point, the Warriors had no playing identity as in they had no style, no footy DNA. We saw signs of this vs Dragons and now it's about embracing their identity (I need a few more games to suss it) and tapping into it against better opposition.
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Peace and love.