Monday Morning Dummy Half: SBW And The Aotearoa Roosters
NRL seasons can be a wee bit long, perhaps a bit too long but never mind that as a long NRL season opens up various grooves for wise NRL coaches to work through and none do this better than Sydney Roosters. Over the course of a season, I tune in to the Roosters and see different players given greater opportunities for a week here and there while a more established player takes a break as coach Trent Robinson builds a group of players who can all contribute when called upon come finals footy.
Splash that low key squad rotation with the stuff we don't quite know so much about like training methods, diet and recovery styles and that's why the Roosters are a leading NRL organisation. From the outside looking in, the Roosters appear to be at the front of the NRL as far as professionalism goes, or player/personal development and along with Melbourne Storm, they are leaders of the NRL. No surprises then that as I explored the various Youtube content of NRL clubs and found that only six of 16 NRL clubs have active Youtube channels, the Roosters and Storm are among the best of that pocket as well.
Seriously: 10 NRL clubs have no Youtube channel. It's 2020 and lol.
The Roosters tho...
These Roosters tho...
I'm always tapped into what the Roosters are up to as I suss out their #KiwiNRL contributions and from that base, I by-passed the Sonny Bill Williams hype, posted at the corner of the ring ready to be tapped into a quality game of footy that was Raiders vs Roosters. Funk isn't hard to find with the Roosters and outside of the #KiwiNRL bubble, you only need to peep how Freddy Lussick has stepped into dummy half; 80mins vs Raiders, barely ran the footy but made 66 tackles @ 90.4 percent.
Lussick is third in the Roosters hooking depth, behind Jake Friend and another youngster Sam Verills. Of course, the play-makers are huge factors for the Roosters and yet what caught my attention during that Roosters win in Canberra was the combinations on offer in their forward pack. Now is a great time to assess some of these forward combos as I'm intrigued about how coach Robinson boils his squad down to a top-17 for finals footy.
Step back into the #KiwiNRL bubble and Sitili Tupouniua is a fantastic example. The Marist Saints junior has played 15 games this season and while his first game of the season was as a starting edge forward role, he then slipped back to the bench for seven games; many young edge forwards are put into bench/middle roles given their mobility and size. Tupouniua has given the Roosters great value as a bench option and then, came a shift to starting edge role in the round 11 win over Warriors.
Since then, Tupouniua plugged a hole at centre and has started five consecutive games as an edge forwards. Make that seven games of starting and playing 80mins and perhaps coach Robinson saw a window in the calendar to ensure Tupouniua grabbed plenty of game time as an edge forward considering the Roosters have played Warriors, Titans, Dragons, Storm, Tigers, Broncos and Raiders in this stretch; two tough games, five slightly easier games.
Or, more to the point, there was a need for Tupouniua to step up and do a job for his team with greater responsibility etc. Boyd Cordner has played two games since round 10, Angus Crichton's last game before this weekend's clash vs Raiders was back in round 10 vs Raiders and Mitchell Aubusson will retire at season's end and last played in round 14 vs Storm. The Roosters don't mess around with concussions or injuries, so they have been able to roll with Cordner's welfare for example, via the rise of Tupouniua.
Previously, it's been Otahuhu's Isaac Liu who has plugged an edge forward hole. Liu is one of the more underground #KiwiNRL players and anyone pondering his quality should know that Liu has quietly jacked up seven Tests for Aotearoa. Most will barely know of Liu and yet after eight games coming off the bench to start the season, Liu has started the next seven games in the middle and played 50+ minutes in all but the weekend's Raiders game (44mins).
The Roosters starting middle forward trio of the past few weeks has been Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Siosiua Taukeiaho and Liu. I don't view Waerea-Hargreaves' Roosters value in stats as he's the rugged bloke, prickly mofo that every good team needs and again, Waerea-Hargreaves is a starting Aotearoa Kiwis middle forward for a reason. Otara's Taukeiaho on the other hand, needs statistics to reflect his standing as a top-tier middle forward ... like top-4 middle forward in the whole NRL.
Taukeiaho is 4th in total Post Contact Metres and I've laid out Taukeiaho's averages in comparison to the three big boppers with more PCM than Taukeiaho...
Average Post Contact Metres per Run
Klemmer - 4.11. Taumalolo - 4.67. Haas - 4.78. Taukeiaho - 4.6.
Average Metres per Run
Klemmer - 9.91. Taumalolo - 11.02. Haas - 10.38. Taukeiaho - 10.13.
Against the Raiders, something fresh was unleashed by coach Robinson as Tupouniua maintained his 80-minute edge forward role and Crichton returned to play as a middle forward off the bench. It's up in the air as to what role is best for Crichton, although he's nicely suited to a middle role in this version of NRL footy and with the Cordner/Tupouniua duo holding down the edges, Crichton was joined by the super impressive Lindsay Collins and Nat Butcher, along with Sonny Billy Williams.
With a possible forward pack of Jesse Bromwich, Dale Finucane, Christian Welch, Kenny Bromwich, Felise Kaufusi, Brandon Smith, Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Tino Fa'asuamaleaui; Melbourne Storm is the only other team with the top-tier talent and immense quality in their depth that is similar to the Roosters.
And thus, as I watched the fascination with Williams as he prepared to step on to the field, I thought about Williams in the 2020 NRL. For starters, having Williams and Crichton come off the bench together is rather epic, then package them with Collins and Butcher, or Glenora Bears junior Poasa Fa'amausili and the Rooster have added to an already Premiership calibre forward pack. For Williams, the hype doesn't quite match the role as I'd suggest Williams himself knows that he is stepping into a forward pack that is simply a best-case rugby league scenario for Williams.
Williams previously operated as an edge forward, where his size, mobility and skill was perfectly aligned with that role. Now, Williams looks set for a middle forward role off the bench and after 14mins vs Raiders, it will be interesting to see how coach Robinson takes Williams forward - I highly doubt Robinson will use Williams on an edge ahead of Tupouniua or Crichton.
With an offload in his first run, Williams flexed that aspect of his game and also of interest is how moving between the codes hasn't impacted Williams' style. In rugby union, Williams' offload was a key asset for his respective teams including the All Blacks and very few international rugby union players have the natural offloading gift that Williams does. Now back in the NRL and Williams offloaded as he got muscled over by some eager Raiders defence, meanwhile Waerea-Hargreaves and Taukeiaho had 2 offloads each vs Raiders.
The Roosters are already 7th in offloads (Storm are 3rd!) and now add Williams into the mix. Keep in mind that Williams won't be tasked with a metre-eater role as he's playing behind an emphatic starting trio, then the likes of Collins, Butcher, Fa'amausili take care of the efficiency business in making metres. The Roosters are also 14th in missed tackles and only the Storm have conceded fewer points, so Williams merely has to settle into an already top-tier defensive system.
Waerea-Hargreaves, Taukeiaho and Liu were part of the Roosters when Williams last played NRL, now Williams returns to those #KiwiNRL homies and perhaps more importantly, Williams links up with youngsters Joseph Manu, Tupouniua, Fa'amausili and Christian Tuipulotu; Tuipulotu is most similar to Williams despite debuting as a winger. These are young polynesians who like you or I, view SBW as a superstar of Aotearoa and there will be immense funk it that ... or just seeing Williams and Manu link up with their skill-set.
The Roosters didn't need Williams and even from a #KiwiNRL perspective, they let Asu Kepaoa leave to Tigers after investing in Kepaoa for a few years alongside Tuipulotu. That was a bummer for the #KiwiNRL nerd in me, although nothing beats sitting back and observing the Roosters build such an immense forward pack that is heavily reliant on lads from Aotearoa. To me, that's the peak of the #KiwiNRL maunga.
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Peace and love.