Aotearoa Warriors return to Mt Smart to face Wests Tigers on Sunday and we all know better than to break down what might happen. Hindsight is a glorious thing as one can reflect on a journey with clarity, a fresh perspective and for many folks this day of Warriors footy will hammer home how niggly the past few years have been. That angle has been explored plenty in these Aotearoa Warriors Diaries.

A fresh wrinkle popped up this week though with a Future Warriors Selection team announced to face the Tigers equivalent. This is not an SG Ball team, but the general premise is that this serves as a teaser for the Warriors return to SG Ball footy next year. Not only did Aotearoa Warriors lose their home ground advantage for almost three seasons, they split operations between two counties and also lost their wahine team as well as the first ever Warriors SG Ball team.

Most Warriors fans didn't even know the SG Ball team existed, so they won't know much about 'Future Warriors' mahi either. Future Warriors has generally covered the Under 16 bracket and prior to the pandemic they played games against various representative teams - including touring junior teams from Australian NRL clubs.

The SG Ball team was snatched away by a pandemic, yet Warriors maintained their Future Warriors set up in Aoteaora and invested in a bunch of juniors to move to Redcliffe. This specific FWS team is an U18 group and while under the Future Warriors umbrella, is closer to the U19 SG Ball level than other Future Warriors stuff. Not only are Warriors returning to Mt Smart, this FWS team signals the return of Warriors juniors who have been playing over in Redcliffe.

Sefanaia Cowley-Lupo (fullback), Eric Va'afusuaga (wing), Ali Leiataua (centre), Tamakaimona Whareaorere (middle) and Jacob Laban (edge) all dabbled in Redcliffe U18s/U21 footy this year.

Cowley-Lupo, Va'afusuaga and Leiataua all played Redcliffe U21s this year and are now named in a FWS U18 team. Va'afusuaga was playing Redcliffe U21s last year and Leiataua scored 4 tries in an U21s game this year. These lads were competing in Australia at an U21s level while still in the U18 bracket and this provides further insight into the growth of rugby league in Aotearoa.

Va'afusuaga and Leiataua also played in the 2020 SG Ball team which won a bunch of games with lads who were well below the U18 mark. Also notable here is that the Warriors still have lads over with Redcliffe U21s such as the Kepu twins, Zyon Maiu'u and Lleyton Finau. Tome Poona, Benjamin Kosi and Demetric Sifakula are other Warriors juniors floating around that level who should be part of future plans.

This serves as further insight into the logistics of running junior pipelines across two different countries. The Warriors Sevens team from earlier this year featured Sebastian Su'a who is playing Fox Memorial with Mt Albert, while Timothy Tiatia also played in that Sevens team and has featured for Manurewa. This highlights the spread of Warriors juniors and while there is plenty of excitement around an NRL return to Mt Smart, the most exciting aspect of this is bringing all junior Warriors stuff together in a concentrated fashion.

Sio Kali (wing), William Piliu (halfback), Elijah Salesa-Leaumoana (extended bench) are all named for FWS after playing Warriors Sevens. Selu Halasima has been in various Future Warriors camps before and he is named to start in the middle for FWS. Then there is Xavier Tito-Harris who starts in the halves alongside Piliu. Tito-Harris didn't play for Warriors Sevens because he was busy with the Condor Sevens team competing against Warriors in that World School Sevens tournament.

The rest of the FWS team stems from the recent Warriors Academy group who played games in Whangarei, Tauranga and Rotorua earlier this year. Patrick Moimoi (centre), Khalan Clyde (hooker), Dennis Sofara (middle), Kayliss Fatialofa (edge), Rodney Vea (bench), Siale Siulangapo (bench) and Jeriko Filipi-Talisau (bench) make up the rest of the FWS and these lads were part of the Warriors Academy tour.

This lays out plenty of junior Warriors mahi, but not all of it. There will be players who are part of the Warriors system that aren't in this FWS and as we move towards greater clarity around the junior Warriors matters, there will be more concentrated groups. This FWS game will be played prior to the NRL game and shown on Sky Sports, so tune in to gather more information. Stay learning.

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