In shuffling out Aotearoa Warriors juniors like Ken Maumalo, Hayze Perham, Paul Turner and Peta Hiku over the past month or so, the Warriors have put out a slight Aotearoa Breakers vibe under their new owners. The Breakers are all USA jibber-jabber on their social media and seem to have no interest in raising a kiwi basketball farm. The Breakers right now seem to think overseas signings are the way to go, players who kiwis know nothing about and with their attention zoned in everywhere except Aotearoa; they aren't close to the old Breakers dynasty.

That's actually a lot more similar to the NRL than you might think. This season there were a record number of kiwis playing for Australian NBL clubs - those Australian clubs would sometimes field more kiwis than the Breakers. The Warriors added Australian players Addin Fonua-Blake, Euan Aitken, Marcelo Montoya, Kane Evans and Bayley Sironen over the summer before snaring Reece Walsh earlier this season. Who have they signed for next season? Melbourne Storm forward Aaron Pene.

Plenty of Aussie talent coming in and the local juniors are the lads who have made way. Maybe the Breakers have some grand plan to establish a bountiful kiwi basketball development pipeline as I suspect the Warriors are doing. However the Breakers have shown no legit signs of that and not only do they use their development spots to sign foreign players, the Breakers do not have anything close to the equivalent of Phil Gould and Peter O'Sullivan running their show.

The Maumalo departure hit different to the others. As a Papatoetoe Panthers junior and South Auckland legend, Maumalo has been a tremendous servant for the Warriors who should serve as inspiration for those pursuing growth. Every season Maumalo added something to his game and somehow stuck solid as an extremely slick finisher despite his size, to establish himself as an Aotearoa Kiwis winger.

To get around to why the Warriors would do this, let's jam the Wests Tigers angle where Kiwis coach Michael Maguire has flipped the Tigers into a Kiwi-NRL hotbed (Gold Coast Titans are my other Kiwi-NRL hotbed). The Tigers haven't stacked their NRL team with Kiwi-NRL talent, under Maguire they have built out their lower levels and their NSW Cup team this week featured...

Junior Pauga: former NZ Warriors junior, mid-season pick up from Wynnum Manly in Queensland.

Tukimihia Simpkins: signed late in the summer from Cowboys.

Kelma Tuilagi: signed from Storm last summer.

Etuale Lui: signed from Eels ahead of 2020 season.

Joseph Taipari: signed from Eels ahead of 2020 season.

Those lads were recruited from Aotearoa by other NRL clubs. Along with Asu Kepaoa who the Tigers signed mid-season last year from Roosters, this has emerged as a clear trend under coach Maguire and it goes deeper as Israel Ogden was signed by the Tigers from Warriors prior to this season to play Jersey Flegg. After playing for the Warriors SG Ball team last year and then impressing in the NZRL Under 18 Schools vs Clubs game, the Tigers signed Jarney Proctor-Harwood, Tray Lolesio and Tamehana Paruru to play SG Ball.

All these Kiwi-NRL deep cuts come directly from player agents who are leading the way in sealing Kiwi-NRL opportunities and if you want to see how crazy the Kiwi-NRL takeover is, just jam any one of these agents Facebook pages. Maumalo's agent is apparently Stan Martin and he's linked up with another prominent Kiwi-NRL agent Dixon McIver who sealed the moves of the young Tigers (Proctor-Harwood, Lolesio and Paruru). Other clients who are interesting in this context are Agnatius Paasi, Chris Satae and Ligi Sao who all got rather nice exits from the Warriors.

This is all to suggest that Maumalo's move to Tigers is easy to process. Under Maguire the Tigers have almost strictly recruited Kiwi-NRL players and the Tigers seem to have a lovely relationship with Sport Vision. Agents are only concerned with the best for their client and while agent Martin was rather vocal about Maumalo’s exit through the media, his job is to find the best situation for Maumalo and as soon as there was some niggle between the Warriors and Maumalo, a better situation was quickly found.

Things quickly changed for the Warriors when Reece Walsh excelled. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck's willingness to play wing shuffled the decks and there is another clear trend within the Warriors of more footwork, more agility, more speed and skill. Maumalo is a high quality winger and plays his way, which feels at odds with the direction of the Warriors. The Tigers have other needs, other holes to fill and so thus they want Maumalo.

The Warriors will not invest heavily in a winger with O'Sullivan at the helm. Wingers are the easiest position to scout and the Storm do a fantastic job of rolling through athletic wingers who always end up leaving the Storm for more money. O'Sullivan signed Junior Ratuva who has yet to really do anything with the Warriors, but he was a 1st 15 forward for Kings College who was signed by the Storm in recent years to play wing. The recipe is evident there and O'Sullivan knows the recipe well.

I'm fizzing to see Maumalo play for the Tigers with my Kiwi-NRL goggles on. For the Warriors, this was purely business and far more players end up in the Maumalo bucket than the Simon Mannering type of bucket. What's crucial here is that I believe the Warriors are building a bridge to their younger crop and this is the major difference between the Warriors and Breakers; Warriors have maintained a hearty crop of juniors across two countries during the 2021 post-pandy phase while Breakers keep signing foreigners.

Younger up and comers are always cheaper than established players. Rocco Berry has been in the slow-cooker for a while as a talented prospect, while Edward Kosi kinda came out of nowhere to emerge as an adequate NRL winger. Adam Pompey and Euan Aitken are competing for spots; David Fusitu'a has played 13 games since the start of last season.

Maybe the Warriors sign Dallin Watene-Zelezniak? They would be extorting the Bulldogs to do so and that's nifty business. Such a move would enhance the bridge idea, giving younger lads time to stack up games in reserve grade. Viliami Vailea has been emphatic at centre for Redcliffe Dolphins with six tries in seven games - all of which are wins - and the Dolphins Under 21s team has often featured Wellington junior Daeon Amituanai on the wing alongside William Fakatoumafi, the Kepu twins, Taniela Otukolo, Lleyton Finau and Jyris Glamuzina.

Outside back Eric Va'afusuaga was shipped over to Redcliffe to play Under 18s alongside half Sebastyan Jack. This gives the Warriors an outside back prospect in each Redcliffe Dolphins team who I believe the Warriors really like as they invested heavily in providing these lads an opportunity in a different country. With Phil Gould's influence permeating throughout the Warriors, I suspect these are the early stages of the local junior takeover that will filter through to the NRL team.

Both the Warriors and Breakers have local talent, while currently leaning heavily into foreign talent to bolster their squads. While the Breakers seem to be loving their identity crisis, the Warriors appear to have clear intentions of flooding their NRL team with local talent. The NRL Warriors may not reflect this, yet even with their junior pipelines split between two countries, Aotearoa Warriors have laid foundations for a wave of local talent to take over.

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