Eight games down in the 2021 NRL season and Aotearoa Warriors are 7th, with a 4-4 record. Get used to that because it feels as though the Warriors will go to battle with a bunch of mid-table teams on the fringe of the finals spots once again and given the frantic nature of this season's first stanza, this isn't such a bad platform to build upon. The Warriors snuck home against North Queensland Cowboys and while they came within many whiskers of coughing up a loss, this game followed the Cowboys' recipe from recent weeks.

Coming into the Warriors game, the Cowboys had won three in a row. The first of those wins was away to Tigers in which the Tigers scored five of their six tries in the second half, then the Cowboys defeated the Doggies and scored four of their five tries in the second half. The win over Canberra Raiders saw the Cowboys scored the last three tries of the game, with two of their four tries coming in the second half. Against the Warriors, the Cowboys scored the last four tries and three of their four tries came in the second half.

We'd love the Warriors to shut a game like that down, but right now that's not realistic when the Cowboys do their best stuff in the second half and the Warriors are diving deep into their playing squad. Last week Rocco Berry and Reece Walsh made their NRL debuts, this week Edward Kosi grabbed his debut.

Walsh is the easy bloke to get giddy about, yet the relative ease at which Berry and Kosi found an NRL groove is encouraging. Berry is smooth and forecasts as a skillful centre who could chime in at fullback, while Kosi casually jacked up 16 carries on NRL debut. Warriors fans have watched a bunch of players leave the club at the top level and within the junior pathways, yet under Peter O'Sullivan there is a certain efficiency and class that is coming through the ranks.

Walsh, Berry, Kosi, Adam Pompey, Jamayne Taunoa-Brown and Josh Curran were not with the Warriors to start 2018. Kosi only appeared for a Jersey Flegg trial late in 2018 while the rest were all with other clubs and under O'Sullivan, these lads have all come to the Warriors on what must be rather cheap deals and now they're contributing. Take Taunoa-Bown for example as he was plucked out of Queensland's Intrust Super Cup ahead of the 2020 season and he's now played 24 games for the club.

Taunoa-Brown is the oldest of this little group at 24-years-old. Pompey is 22-years-old and somehow Curran is only 21-years-old. Along with the teenagers in Berry and Walsh, plus Kosi who is in his early-20s (unconfirmed exact age), the Warriors have re-freshed their roster with slick bits of low key recruitment. Then these players need to develop into NRL jokers and both boxes get ticks for the Warriors right now.

All the Warriors chat is about the flair, razzle dazzle players right now. What about the blokes who kinda make all that possible?

Addin Fonua-Blake hasn't played since the round four loss to Roosters and the Warriors are 2-2 without Fonua-Blake. Not only have the Warriors won games without Fonua-Blake, they are still 1st in Post Contact Metres and Fonua-Blake's 65.7pcm/game is still good enough for him to be ranked 8th in PCM/game; Warriors lose a top-10 PCM guzzler and are still 1st in PCM.

Even though the Warriors are 14th in Kick Return Metres, they have Ken Maumalo in 2nd and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck in 3rd for PCM across the whole NRL. When the Warriors are at full-strength, they could have four of the top-10 PCM runners in the NRL as David Fusitua is just behind Fonua-Blake in the PCM averages: 64.2pcm/game. Without Fusitua and Fonua-Blake, the Warriors still managed more PCM than the Cowboys, with the Cowboys having more possession, runs and run metres than the Warriors.

The real unsung heroes though, reside in the middle and the funkiest two are Tohu Harris and Leeson Ah Mau.

Harris has played seven games with 80mins in four games and at least 65mins in every game, tackling @ 92.5 percent efficiency.

Ah Mau has played all eight games and he dipped below 40mins for the first time this season in playing 30mins vs Cowboys. Tackling @ 96.5 percent efficiency, Ah Mau has registered 1 missed tackle in eight games.

Led by these kinda lads, the Warriors are 12th in total missed tackles. The Warriors are one of five teams with less than 200 missed tackles and they average 24.9 missed tackles per game (12th). This points to what may be the biggest change under coach Nathan Brown as the Warriors have flipped the switch from being among the worst, to among the best...

2018: 33.4 missed tackles per game (3rd most)

2019: 33.9 missed tackles per game (4th most)

2020: 30.5 missed tackles per game (4th most)

2021: 24.9 missed tackles per game (12th).

That's a drastic improvement and the Cowboys game sums this up. The Warriors don't quite feel like a solid defensive team just yet and are still conceding points. The Warriors only missed 13 tackles to the Cowboys 30 missed tackles and the Cowboys scored 20 points to make this a contest. With the best completion rate in the NRL (82.7%) and also keeping a lid on missed tackles, the Warriors are at the very least giving themselves a chance in every game.

One thing that may be helping the Warriors defensively, is a decrease in what the middles churn out with the footy. Last year Harris was averaging 173m/game and that's dropped down to 125m/game. Ah Mau's gone from 81m/game to 73m/game. Bunty Afoa has dropped from 89m/game to 70m/game. Taunoa-Brown went from 95m/game to 55m/game and Jazz Tevaga's gone from 135m/game to 89m/game.

Even Fonua-Blake dropped down in his four games, going from 166m/game with Manly to 140m/game this season. Fonua-Blake and all those in the above paragraph are tackling better than 90 percent efficiency, with Fonua-Blake's 95.8 percent and Ah Mau's 96.5 percent the high markers.

The theory here would be that there has been a change in energy use. Take a bit away from running the footy (while still being 1st in PCM) and use more energy defending - completing sets helps better use this energy as well.

The Warriors were busy in the summer market catching headlines. They have brought in various younger players as well to flex their development in player development. The bulk of the mahi in the middle though has been done by blokes who were already holding the Warriors down. Harris and Afoa have missed just one game each this season, while Ah Mau and Tevaga have played all eight games. The bright lights look nice, don't be blinded by them though and steady growth in the hearty Warriors is a promising sign.

Peace and love.