Aotearoa Warriors Diary: Round Rua vs Roosters
Aotearoa Warriors started their season with two wins and a loss against Newcastle Knights, now all three teams take on their Sydney Roosters equivalents. Warriors enjoyed wins in NRL and NSW Cup against Knights with both games played in Aotearoa, while the Under 19 SG Ball team lost their away trip to Newcastle.
Warriors SG Ball are 2-1 and sit in the middle of the ladder. Away excursions will be difficult for the SG Ball team, especially trips outside of Sydney. Having junior teams in NSW competitions helps Warriors juniors adapt to the same travel rigours of the senior teams and we’ll keep learning about the impact of travel on winning.
Warriors SG Ball play in Auckland against Roosters this weekend and there is a notable change in the halves with Phranklyn Mano-Le-Mamea coming into the halves for William (Salesi) Piliu. Mano-Le-Mamea went to De La Salle College and was part of the NZRL Under 18 Clubs team, while Piliu was in the Schools team. Both started in the halves for that game. Along with Sefanaia Cowley-Lupo who played a few Under 21s games for Warriors-Redcliffe last year, there are at least three decent halves in the Warriors junior system.
Last week Warriors SG Ball faced a Knights team with Jarome Falemoe and Elijah Salesa-Leaumona who played in that Under 18 Schools vs Clubs game via Southern Cross Campus. Knights also had Jayden Harris and Tamakaimoana Whareaorere (Te Puke) coming off their bench as Kiwi-NRL juniors.
Roosters have Cassius Tia (Marist), Benaiah Ioelu (Tangaroa College) and Salesi Foketi (Manurewa) in their SG Ball team who return to Auckland. Javahn Stevenson-Hala is also on the bench and he's from Palmerston North Boys High School.
One thing to track for Warriors vs Roosters in NSW Cup is the mahi of Zyon Maiu'u and Isaiah Vagana as young props. Maiu'u churned out 12 runs for 124m @ 10.33m/run in 44 minutes which is pretty impressive for a lad playing his first reserve grade game. Vagana played 35mins with 7 runs for 63m @ 9m/run and he also leaped up to NSW Cup this season.
Jazz Tevaga is named to start in NSW Cup and he stands out as an experienced forward in a young NSW Cup group. Maiu'u and Vagana are local juniors who endured plenty of footy niggle during the pandemic, now they are starting props who could snap up an NRL opportunity later in the season.
The NRL Warriors defeated Knights with an energetic performance. Warriors were eager to whack in defence and while no Knights player averaged 10m/run or above, Warriors had seven players averaging at least 10m/run. Run hard, tackle hard.
That's how Redcliffe defeated Roosters last weekend as well, so expect a bounce back from the Chooks. Regardless of who is in or out of the Roosters team, their coach Trent Robinson will have them fizzing to return to their status-quo. Can Warriors back it up against an eager Roosters outfit?
Warriors passing and distribution was on show against Knights. While the Saifiti brothers combined for no passes, the Warriors starting props in Addin Fonua-Blake and Mitchell Barnett combined for four passes. No Knights forward had more than three passes, while Tohu Harris had 11 passes and Dylan Walker had 18 passes.
Harris also had 51 tackles and Walker did this too...
There was plenty of fuss around the Kalyn Ponga situation and the best Warriors defence came while Ponga was on the field. Prior to Ponga's departure, Warriors defended multiple sets back to back with Ponga orchestrating Knights attack. This was evident in try-saving tackles as well as dominant wrestle which slowed the Knights attack. We probably shouldn’t expect that against Roosters as a top-notch NRL team, although signs of defensive development would be lovely.
Tom Ale is a secret to keep stashed away for Warriors folks. In just 8mins of footy, Ale had 4 runs - 52m @ 13m/run and this has been a steady thread through his mahi since last season. Warriors have funky variety in the forward pack and it's lovely to know that coach Webster can deploy Ale at some stage of the game for extra oomph.
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Peace and love.