At the top of the NRL ladder sit the best Kiwi-NRL player of 2021 in James Fisher-Harris, along with a trio of Aotearoa halves in Dylan Brown, Benji Marshall and Jahrome Hughes. None of these four lads are from Auckland and the shining region right now is still Northland as Fisher-Harris and Brown lead a younger wave of Northland Kiwi-NRL talent. We know Marshall's from Whakatane and Hughes is from Wellington - another pocket of strong Kiwi-NRL contributions.

I've covered how the Kiwi-NRL Eels are developing under Brad Arthur plenty to start the season and Fisher-Harris does deserve a quick update here. Otherwise, today's MMDH is all about Aotearoa Kiwis halves.

Fisher-Harris has played all seven games this season, playing 50+ minutes in every game. 25+ tackles in every game and Fisher-Harris is tackling @ 94.3% efficiency. Last year, Fisher-Harris averaged 17.51 tackles per missed tackle and that's increased to 25 tackles per miss this season while Fisher-Harris' running metres have taken a minor dip from 179m/game to 164m/game.

Fisher-Harris is 5th in Post Contact Metres, 9th in total run metres, 10th in total runs. Fisher-Harris is on track for his fourth season playing 20+ games and he has more tackle busts than missed tackles (10 vs 8).

As for Benji...

With Latrell Mitchell out of the Rabbitohs line up, Cody Walker moved to fullback and Marshall stepped into the halves. This was Marshall's second start of the season and part of his brilliance this season revolves around him playing various roles that have been explored in previous MMDH. Now we're enjoying Marshall the starting half and alongside Adam Reynolds, Marshall scored 2 tries with 3 linebreak assists. Marshall had 33 touches and 3 kicks, Reynolds had 39 touches and 13 kicks.

Marshall worked closely with edge forward Keaon Koloamatangi and that's notable because Koloamatangi did a great job at finding holes off of Marshall. Here are Marshall's funky involvements.

Basic Rabbitohs play here. Reynolds to Marshall behind a decoy, Marshall with Koloamatangi hitting the hole…

Big defensive effort from Marshall, chasing the play and then getting to the kick first…

Reynolds to Marshall, behind a decoy. Marshall passes behind Koloamatangi this time though…

Reynolds to Marshall, behind a decoy. This time Marshall is under pressure, hits Koloamatangi with quick hands…

Reynolds hits Cameron Murray (same shape) with Marshall swiftly pushing up in support…

In seven games, Marshall already has 3 tries. The last time Marshall scored more than 3 tries in a season was 2013 (last season before first Tigers departure) when he scored 5 tries and Marshall is also in the midst of a reasonably solid defensive campaign. Keep in mind that to this point, Marshall has played as a half apart from his one year with Brisbane Broncos when he dabbled in dummy half duties. This season Marshall has played a bunch of roles which may help or hurt the perception on his defensive work. Regardless, he's tackling better in these varied roles under Wayne Bennett at the Bunnies.

Here are some of Marshall's notable missed tackle seasons and his last four seasons broked down in tackles per miss...

2005: 3.52.

2012: 2.65.

2018: 4.22.

2019: 8.71.

2020: 7.

2021: 11.12.

Marshall played under Aotearoa Kiwis coach Michael Maguire with the Tigers and his defence was sighted as an issue last season. Now the Tigers are worse, while Marshall's not only contributing to Rabbitohs wins - he's also doing a far better job defensively. The Rabbitohs are 6-1 and while that's largely due to a lot of non-Benji things, this winning percentage of 86 percent is the highest of Marshall's career and the only season that comes close is the 2005 Premiership winning run (67%).

The Tigers thing continues to be weird as Maguire is Kiwis coach. Hopefully no bad vibes stretching into Aotearoa Kiwis business.

Dylan Brown and Jahrome Hughes are playing their roles nicely, within their respective systems. Hughes is a tough half to judge as everything looks beautiful in the Storm system, especially when Brandon Smith (5 DHR for 62m) and Harry Grant (6 DHR for 65m) combine for 127 metres from dummy half runs @ 11.54m/DHR vs NZ Warriors. Or Nelson Asofa-Solomona is cruising with 11 runs for 113m @ 10.27m/run.

Hughes is playing behind two of the best dummy halves in the competition and in a team that has no worries getting on the front foot. As you can see below, Hughes and Cameron Munster have a better split in sharing their duties than Brown and Mitchell Moses. That's due to how the teams play as the Storm roll with two halves doing similar things, while Eels have a dominant half in Moses and then Brown is free to focus on running and tackling.

Parramatta Eels

Mitchell Moses: 317 kicking metres | 62 run metres | 48.71 touches | 76.6% tackling.

Dylan Brown: 136.95 kicking metres | 110 run metres | 46.18 touches | 92.6% tackling.

Melbourne Storm

Cameron Munster: 203.59 kicking metres | 109 run metres | 52.57 touches | 82% tackling.

Jahrome Hughes: 296.71 kicking metres | 85 run metres | 48 touches | 80.6% tackling.

Marshall, Brown and Hughes are playing good footy within winning teams. Marshall appears to have a couple more weeks in the halves ahead of him and that's going to be fun to see how he develops with a consistent role. My Eels vibe is more long-term as the Eels have fallen short in Finals footy despite being slick in the regular season and a key difference could be Brown's greater role, easing pressure on Moses. For Hughes and the Kiwi-NRL Storm crew, this is the funkiest time of year as State of Origin is approaching and we'll learn a wee bit more about Hughes the halfback when he's playing without Munster.

Rabbitohs have some young Kiwi-NRL talent in Jaxson Paulo (Northcote Tigers) who played his second game of the season on the wing and Steven Marsters (Mt Wellington Warriors) was a non-playing reserve this weekend. Kaumatua veteran in Marshall, some young kiwi talent in the backline bolsters the Rabbits Kiwi-NRL juice.

Eels are the funkiest Kiwi-NRL team right now and I'm keeping a close eye on their player development, especially now that Hayze Perham has joined Parramatta (played reserve grade this round). The Storm are always among Kiwi-NRL elite, plus they have Taranaki's Judda Turahui playing on an edge in Jersey Flegg.

The funky yarns don't stop though. Shaun Johnson made his return to Cronulla Sharks and his pre-planned departure around the 60-minute mark coincided with Sharks falling away vs Bulldogs. Johnson's coming off-contract, meaning he's in the shop window for new coach Craig Fitzgibbon and other NRL clubs. Then we have Kieran Foran quietly stacking up game time and he's played 80mins in six consecutive games; three losses then three wins.

That's five high quality halves from Aotearoa. Three with the best teams in the competition, one returning from injury and one who is toiling away with a team on the rise. Foran and Johnson are the only two from the wider Auckland region, while the best Kiwi-NRL halves are from around the North Island.

Non Auckland Starting 13

Fullback: Caleb Aekins (Northland).

Wings: Mawene Hiroti (Taranaki), Patrick Herbert (Bay of Plenty).

Centres: Joseph Manu (Waikato), Morgan Harper (Waikato).

Halves: Benji Marshall (BOP), Dylan Brown (Northland).

Middles: Jared Waerea-Hargreaves (BOP), James Fisher-Harris (Northland), Nelson Asofa-Solomona (Wellington).

Hooker: Jahrome Hughes (Wellington)

Edges: Briton Nikora (BOP), Jordan Riki (Christchurch).

Should be there: Joseph Tapine (Wellington), Jamayne Isaako (Christchurch), Corey Harawira-Naera (Northland).

Peace and love.