The rugby league community will celebrate Jarrod Croker's 300th NRL game for Canberra Raiders on Friday night and Aotearoa is sending the NZ Warriors to take part in festivities. The Warriors will offer typically hearty Aotearoa respect for Croker and his Raiders before aiming to spoil the party by whacking blokes in defence and razzle dazzle attacking footy.

Raiders are a funky footy team who are stacking up wins while also appearing fragile in patches. Last round Tigers almost grabbed a late victory as Raiders switched off in the final 10 minutes. Raiders have also suffered a 12-53 defeat to Panthers and 14-42 defeat to Sea Eagles in Canberra this season. Despite having one more win than Warriors, Raiders have conceded almost 100 more points than Warriors and average 25.3 points conceded. Warriors sit on 18.7 points conceded per game.

Stopping Raiders can be tricky as they offer unpredictable attack. Raiders are fifth for Offloads and sixth for Dummy Half Runs, higher than Warriors in both. Warriors can tighten the middle and win the ruck, however their response to offloads and mana to stay engaged in defensive plays will be crucial.

The 300th game for Croker will make things extra interesting. Emotions will be flowing and a hefty crowd is expected to celebrate the moment. Although we will wait and see if the crowd for this game is bigger than a regular Warriors game in Auckland. The Mt Smart faithful have delivered three consecutive crowds over 20,000 and the other home game in Auckland was 18,595. This gives Warriors crowds of over 18,000 in all four games in Auckland.

Raiders haven't reached that 18,000 marker this season.

Even if Canberra goes bonkers, they might reach the same attendance that Warriors had last weekend against Dolphins. Warriors have crowds of 23,686 vs Dolphins and 23,695 vs Cowboys in fairly mundane fixtures. That's what Raiders will be hoping for in one of their biggest games of the season.

That offers balance for the debut of Papatoetoe junior Ali Leiataua. Canberra will be rocking and yet Leiataua has tasted such environments for home games in Auckland as part of the wider Warriors squad. Leiataua has also had a steady development path that is likely to keep him calm and present, zoning in on his footy mahi.

As of Thursday morning, Leiataua could play centre on either edge and could even line up on the wing with Marcelo Montoya covering centre. Adam Pompey has played right and left centre this season. Matthew Timoko (Otahuhu) is fabulous centre who averages 158m/game and Pompey seems better suited to wrapping up Timoko than Leiataua on debut. Lining up against Croker would also offer challenges to Leiataua as Croker has better distribution than Timoko and he would be eager to pounce on any game-reading weakness of Leiataua.

This uncertainty is amplified by weekly shenanigans in NSW Cup. Most of which is due to player availability as the NRL lads dropping down to NSW Cup bump other lads into different positions. NSW Cup coach Slade Griffin loves the shenanigans though as he has consistently named Selumiela (Leka) Halasima at edge forward regardless of whether he plays edge or middle. This flows into last round's win over Rabbitohs as Leiataua appeared to play in the halves despite being named at centre.

Geronimo Doyle was named at halfback alongside Eiden Ackland, but Doyle seemed to slot in at fullback. Setu Tu was named at fullback but played wing with Brayden Wiliame and Moala Graham-Taufa playing centres. Sanele Aukusitino played on the other wing. Heading into his NRL debut where he may play centre or wing, Leiataua impressed in the halves last weekend.

Slide back further and Leiataua was fullback for Warriors SG Ball in 2020. This came as Leiataua was playing midfield for Kings College 1st 15 and Leiataua then played fullback for Auckland Blue in the NZRL Under 20s competition in 2021. As part of the Warriors-Redcliffe collaboration, Leiataua moved to Redcliffe to play Under 21s last year and was instrumental in Redcliffe making the final of Quensland's Hasting Deering Colts competition.

While folks were tripping over Warriors during the pandemic, their juniors were among the best U21s in Queensland. Demitric Sifakula was starting prop in the final and Leiataua was starting centre, both are now graduating to NRL footy. Upon returning to Aotearoa, Leiataua has played 14 games of NSW Cup footy where he is usually named at centre.

Leiataua has earned his debut through NSW Cup dominance. There are other examples of Kiwi-NRL lads doing the same thing with Deine Mariner (Marist - Broncos), Will Warbrick (Kawerau -Storm), Valynce Te Whare (Otara - Dolphins) and Keano Kini (Northcote - Titans) dominating reserve grade before entering NRL footy. Leiataua has nine tries, six try assists, nine linebreaks and averages 136m/game through 13 games of NSW Cup. Leiataua also has 51 tackle busts and averages 3.9 tackle busts per game.

This makes Leiataua one of the most dominant NSW Cup players in Australia and Aotearoa, also bumping him ahead of Wiliame and Vailea in the depth chart. Both are named as centres in NSW Cup this round. Vailea has played five NRL games at centre this season and Wiliame played the first two games at centre. Coach Andrew Webster settled on a Pompey/Berry recently and this seems more like a case of Leiataua commanding selection, rather than any major mishap for Wiliame or Vailea.

This offers a trend of coach Webster brewing youngsters to get better and embracing them as players capable of promotions. Tom Ale and Berry both played NRL during the pandemic, but coach Webster gave Ale minutes straight away this season and space to develop. Berry had a few NSW Cup games before being promoted to NRL once he had earned that gig.

Sifakula is an aggressive forward who bolsters middle and edge depth, who coach Webster elevated to NRL. Now Leiataua has earned an opportunity and none of these youngsters have looked uncomfortable in NRL, so it's unlikely that Leiataua will look out of his depth against Raiders. Ale instantly offered oomph, Berry swallowed attackers at centre, Sifakula was dominating tackles in his debut and now Leiataua can showcase his mana in Canberra.

All of which is flowing through the Warriors group. NSW Cup Warriors play in Canberra on Saturday with Laban, Halasima and Tanner Stowers-Smith named as SG Ball lads. Etuate Fukofuka played in the loss to Rabbitohs, giving Warriors four lads who have played SG Ball and NSW Cup this season. Add Sifakula and Leiataua for six Aotearoa juniors who have made either the SG Ball to NSW Cup or NSW Cup to NRL leap this year.

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