Diary Of An Aotearoa Warriors Fan: The Re-Up vs Panthers
After defeating St George Illawara Dragons, Aotearoa Warriors were graced with the narrative that a better team would have given the Dragons hefty dismantling. Give a top team that amount of footy and an opposition that was quite clearly not keen and they would have done a far better job than the Warriors. I don't know about you all, but I was just kinda happy that the Warriors made me feel good and I've never seen the Warriors complete sets like that, so chur.
Also last week, was Penrith Panthers playing out a 14-14 draw with Newcastle Knights. This was celebrated as an epic result for the Knights as they lost Mitchell Pearce and Connor Watson early in the game, playing out a rugged 90 minutes to snare the draw. Both teams had opportunities to win the game (multiple field-goal attempts for Penrith's Matt Burton and a bombed try for the Knights), although the same narrative deployed on the Warriors could also apply to a Panthers team that should have rallied to win the game without an extra 10 minutes.
Apart of media narrative ideas, this now presents a game between two teams who should have done better in terms of the result despite reasonably solid outings. I find this an interesting premise for the game as this will most likely see one of these teams continue on their positive path while the other's holes are exposed; neither team had holes exposed against their opponents last week despite there being numerous.
Coach Stephen Kearney initially named Karl Lawton at centre and bolstered the bench with Poasa Fa'amausili (Glenora Bears junior) and Josh Curran coming in to join Jack Murchie and King Vuniyayawa. Then there was a late change on the wing which threw a spanner in my equation regarding post-contact-metres as Ken Maumalo's out and Adam Pompey is named to start on the wing.
That PCM bit...
Penrith's wingers Brian To'o and Josh Mansour are 7th and 9th in PCM across the entire NRL. Yeah bro, two rather small wingers are in the top-10 for PCM and along with Daniel Tupou (numbers boosted by last night's game), these are the only backs in the top-10 for PCM. First and foremost, this is an area in which the Warriors will focus on and not just because it's a key area of strength for Penrith but also because - when playing decent footy - the Warriors love to dominate early tackles on outside backs.
Here's a nugget: last week all but Matt Dufty of the five Dragons outside backs averaged at least 10m/run from at least 16 runs - Dufty was alright with 23 runs for 212m.
Despite apparently being known for struggling to get a roll on from their outside backs, the Dragons were actually all good and the Warriors also played their role. This week, if the Warriors allow Mansour and To'o to gather momentum for their team and even come close to putting up similar numbers to the Dragons outside backs from last week, the Panthers have plenty of class to trouble the Warriors. This requires a slick kicking game and rugged efforst on those early tackles.
The leaders for PCM at the Warriors are Maumalo, Eliesa Katoa and Roger Tuviasa-Sheck in that order. Now Maumalo's out and the backline pivots to a smaller group, more footwork and energy, thus presenting a point of intrigue. We're used to both Maumalo and Fusitu'a in the backline and now they're both missing and I'm not too cautious about that as I am interested in the different style.
I expect Harris to play through the middle again this week and as Katoa plays on the left edge, this flows into Isaiah Papali'i defending against Viliame Kikau. I talked a fair amount about Harris in the middle and it's again the most important thing to watch for vs Panthers, meanwhile Papali'i and Katoa both averaged 10m/run along with both tackling at 90% efficiency.
For two young edge forwards, that's fantastic. Stack that on top of Harris' work through the middle and the likes of Jamayne Taunoa-Brown and Adam Blair gaining confidence in their craft to get low key buzz around the forward pack. No Agnatius Paasi this week and this presents an weird old situation where the two new forwards are having immediate opportunities with Murchie and Fa'amausili likey to come off the bench.
I definitely didn't think Fa'aumasili would play much as the loan-deal makes things a bit weird, but with Paasi out and Fa'amausili clearly making a lovely impression this is the result. There are dots to connect here as Warriors recruitment homie Peter O'Sullivan would know Fa'amausili from his time at the Roosters and may have even been instrumental in recruiting Fa'amausili to the Roosters; O'Sullivan has also lured former Roosters Adam Pompey back across the ditch from the Roosters as well as Josh Curran and Jackson Frei.
Fa'amausili was also in the 2016 Junior Kiwis, which featured Papali'i, Patrick Herbert and Nathaniel Roache. This team also had Ata Hingano and Marata Niukore, two former Warriors who left the club to take up opportunities in Australia and are now in very different spots; Hingano was due to play reserve grade in Queensland this year for Mackay Cutters and Niukore is part of the Eels top-17.
It's kinda funky how Murchie and Fa'amausili have marched straight on to the bench. The fact that the Warriors have injuries/suspensions all through their middle is a factor and stops me from going all in on this, but how does this reflect on the Warriors initial middle forwards?
This season we have seen Taunoa-Brown, Vuniyayawa and Katoa promoted to NRL footy and they have all shown positive signs. Then Murchie and Fa'amausili are instantly called upon to play upon their arrivals. We're yet to see Fa'amausili play, so I'll chill a bit, although at this stage I don't really want to see Lachlan Burr back in the mix ... let alone pondering recent middle forwards who have slipped away in the past 12 months.
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Peace and love.