Exploring New Zealand Warriors Halves Depth For 2025 And Beyond
Recent events have increased the pressure and focus on the young halves working their way through the New Zealand Warriors pipeline, although no one should be too worried under the current regime of Andrew Webster and Andrew McFadden. The two Andys have a bunch of halves who are all Under 21s with a mix of local juniors and recruits from Australia as well as a clear development process that isn't usually associated with Warriors mahi.
NZW have Te Maire Martin, Luke Metcalf and Chanel Harris-Tavita competing for starting halves roles next season. All three are signed for 2025 and Metcalf has a deal through to the end of 2026. Metcalf and Harris-Tavita are 25-years-old with Metcalf eager to add to his 23 games of NRL footy, while Harris-Tavita has 68 games experience. Martin is 28-years-old and he has played 92 games.
Taine Tuaupiki is also contracted for next season and he played in the halves for NZ-A last year, so there is a possibility that he develops into halves cover. This seems unlikely but Tuaupiki usually steers the NSW Cup Warriors around when he is in reserve grade and he has grown from 8.3 kicking metres in NSW Cup last year, to 120.7 kicking metres this season ahead of this weekend's fixtures.
Add in Tuaupiki flipping one forced drop-out last season into four this season and strong fullback depth for NZW in the NRL squad to make this an undercover option. Paul Roache is a similar lad as he has combined halves and hooker mahi in NSW Cup this season, having started out as a play-maker for Mt Albert Grammar 1st 15.
Aussie Ben Farr is also an option and he's played every backline position since moving from Queensland to Aotearoa ahead of last season. While we don't know which reserve-graders will be around next season, these examples highlight how NZW develop players below the NRL level as there is a combination of zoning in on a specific role and building the skills required to play different positions; Kalani Going has been brewed as a small forward with strong passing skills while different lads are selected in the halves as an example.
Everyone loved the headlines about NZW signing Jett Cleary from Penrith Panthers for next season and yet NZW already have four young Aussie halves in their system this year. The leader of that pack is Luke Hanson who came up through the Panthers pipeline alongside Isaiya Katoa, consistently playing up age grades before moving to Aotearoa.
Hanson played U19 SG Ball and U21 Jersey Flegg for Panthers last year. Then he had an NRL trial appearance with NZW before starting the season in U21s and quickly sliding into the NSW Cup team. Hanson sits in a murky zone where we don't know his exact age but he's probably 20-years-old (maybe 19yrs) at the moment and he has already played 13 games of NSW Cup this season.
Luke Hanson in NSW Cup:
13 games @ 62% wins, 5 tries, 7 try assists, 70m/game, 5 forced droppies, 166 kick metres/game, 90.4% tackling
Hanson has done a lovely job of plugging the hole left by Ronald Volkman in the NSW Cup Warriors, maintaining a winning record as NZW chase NSW Cup finals for the second year in a row under the two Andys. There is another example of nifty NZW development with Hanson as he had less than 100 kicking metres in his first four games of NSW Cup, before nine consecutive games with 100+ kicking metres with five over 200 kicking metres.
NZW won six of those nine games in which Hanson had 100+ kicking metres and Hanson had a stint of six consecutive games with a try assist in that phase. Despite being a young and small-ish half, Hanson hasn't missed more than four tackles in his 13 NSW Cup games and he's only missed more than three tackles once. Hanson also averages 2.4 tackle breaks per game and all of this, with a hearty Panthers pedigree suggests that Hanson goes alright.
Ideally, Hanson plays in the halves for the NSW Cup Warriors as they push into finals footy and then he has another pre-season with the NRL squad. Hanson has already impact winning in NSW Cup and while it's a stretch to expect him to add to the NRL halves depth next season, Hanson has had a swift rise since arriving at Mt Smart.
The most interesting thing here is that Hanson wasn't graced with a big announcement about his signing from NZW, unlike the youngest Cleary. Hanson has already played 13 games of NSW Cup while balancing his second year of Jersey Flegg footy, meanwhile Cleary has played three games of Jersey Flegg this season for Panthers. Of those three games, Cleary has started in the halves twice and he has one appearance coming off the bench.
Cleary is named on the bench again for Panthers U21s this weekend after starting the season in U19s. This crossover of SG Ball/Jersey Flegg puts Cleary in the bracket of Maui Winitana-Patelesio, Jesse Soric and Tallan Egan who have also dabbled in U21s after starting in U19s. These lads are all behind Caleb Laiman who was doing the U19/U21 crossover in 2022 with Bulldogs before returning to Auckland where he has combined Flegg and NSW Cup this season.
Laiman started three games in the halves for NSW Cup Warriors with two wins and 100+ kicking metres in those two wins. In keeping with the NZW development style, Laiman has come off the bench in four games of NSW Cup where he has mainly played dummy half in limited minutes. NZW have two U21 halves who have played NSW Cup this season in Hanson and Laiman, both have winning rates over 60%.
Tokoroa's Cassius Cowley sits between the Hanson/Laiman tier and the lads below. Cowley featured in the NZW in their 2020 SG Ball team before moving to Wynnum in Queensland where he started with the U18s and earned a pre-season trial appearance with Wynnum's Queensland Cup team early in 2023. Cowley consistently played up an age grade for Wynnum and he returned to Mt Smart this year where he has played 14 games of Jersey Flegg.
Wellington's Winitana-Patelesio has also dabbled in bench mahi for U19s and U21s while starting a bunch of games in the halves. Soric has primarily played in the halves across both grades and Egan has rolled through games at fullback. All three have played more Jersey Flegg games than Cleary while also starting in SG Ball, but Cleary has worked his way into a top-tier Panthers U21s team ... who lost to NZW earlier this season with Laiman and Cowley playing as the halves in that game.
Here are the number of games played by these lads across the grades…
(U19 | U21 | NSW Cup)
Luke Hanson (Penrith): 0 | 6 | 13
Caleb Laiman (Marist): 0 | 9 | 7
Cassius Cowley (Tokoroa): 0 | 14 0
Maui Winitana-Patelesio (Upper Hutt): 8 | 9 | 0
Jesse Soric (Byron Bay): 8 | 7 | 0
Tallan Egan (Lithgow): 3 | 5 | 0
Jett Cleary (Penrith): 7 | 3 | 0
There is a clear theme in the seven halves listed above as three are from Aotearoa (only one from Auckland) and four are from Australia. This leads us to a deep cut...
NZW won the NSW Harold Matthews Cup at the Under 17 level in their first entry of this competition. NZW were 10th after round five with a 2-2 record before Jack Thompson joined the team in what seems to have been a mid-season move from Newcastle Knights. Thompson played the first three games for Knights before moving to Aotearoa and NZW overtook Knights on the ladder to finish sixth with a 5-3 record.
There were plenty of halves combinations deployed by NZW U17s on their way to the championship, but the best combo appears to have been Thompson and Rotorua's Tyson Hansen. NZW only lost one game with Thompson in the halves and the halves combo of Hansen/Deshontayne Te Wao (Otahuhu) got the job done in the semi-final win vs Bulldogs without Thompson, before Thompson/Hansen started in the Grand Final.
This is another reminder of how important the full buffet of junior teams is for NZW as there are youngsters in all positions moving up a grade each year to fill spots ahead of them. Most notably though, NZW were able to recruit a Thompson from Knights during the U17 competition and he had a clear impact on winning at this level. Regardless of how Thompson performed, he was the fourth young Aussie half to be recruited by NZW and assuming these lads stick around at Mt Smart, the arrival of Cleary will make it five young Aussie halves.
NZW have plenty of local halves in the mix too and McFadden is doing a fabulous job in building the talent pool from around Aotearoa. NZW haven't recruited halves from Australia at the junior level before and this is a fresh wrinkle of the two Andys era, increasing the quality of competitive depth throughout the entire NZW pipeline. None of this, aside from freaky development from Hanson, is likely to impact the NRL squad next season but there is clear play-making plan in place that will ensure that NZW have halves talent at Mt Smart for the next five years at least.
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