General YOUR 2023 WARRIORS TEAM

[Mullayo]

Right here are some stats—part of the metric I'm making—for our current and former forwards & Volkman.

I've normalised the tackles at per 40 mins, so we can compare apples with apples. MT = Missed tackles.

Player Name--MT--TotalT--MT%------TperG--Tp40m

Jazz	33	555	5.6	32.6​	27.2​
Pene	17	257	6.2	18.4​	26.2​
Afoa	33	572	5.5	23.8​	25.1​
Lussick	23	263	8.0	23.9​	24.5​
Ale	7	54	11.5	13.5​	23.5​
Ben Murdoch-Masila	5	153	3.2	13.9​	22.3​
Otukolo	9	92	8.9	13.1​	21.9​
Curran	43	625	6.4	34.7​	21.7​
Sironen	32	310	9.4	23.8​	21.2​
Tohu Harris	33	540	5.8	36.0​	20.9​
Niukore	40	338	10.6	22.5​	20.5​
Egan	56	704	7.4	35.2​	20.1​
Barnett	40	454	8.1	32.4​	19.7​
Walker	44	508	8.0	22.1​	18.8​
Addin Fonua-Blake	19	523	3.5	24.9​	18.4​
Aitken	39	738	5.0	35.1​	18.0​
Lodge	38	334	10.2	20.9​	17.0​
Ellie	18	337	5.1	16.9​	16.4​
Murchie	27	363	6.9	20.2​	13.2​
Volkman	4	49	7.5	24.5​	12.3​

As you can see, Addin Fonua-Blake is better than I expected, Aitken will be missed as our overall tackle leader and Jazz is fairly efficient as is Bunty.
Niukore is slightly disappointing but given he played centre a lot, more understandable.

 

[Mr Brownstone]

Right here are some stats—part of the metric I'm making—for our current and former forwards & Volkman.

I've normalised the tackles at per 40 mins, so we can compare apples with apples. MT = Missed tackles.

Player Name--MT--TotalT--MT%------TperG--Tp40m

Jazz	33	555	5.6	32.6​	27.2​
Pene	17	257	6.2	18.4​	26.2​
Afoa	33	572	5.5	23.8​	25.1​
Lussick	23	263	8.0	23.9​	24.5​
Ale	7	54	11.5	13.5​	23.5​
Ben Murdoch-Masila	5	153	3.2	13.9​	22.3​
Otukolo	9	92	8.9	13.1​	21.9​
Curran	43	625	6.4	34.7​	21.7​
Sironen	32	310	9.4	23.8​	21.2​
Tohu Harris	33	540	5.8	36.0​	20.9​
Niukore	40	338	10.6	22.5​	20.5​
Egan	56	704	7.4	35.2​	20.1​
Barnett	40	454	8.1	32.4​	19.7​
Walker	44	508	8.0	22.1​	18.8​
Addin Fonua-Blake	19	523	3.5	24.9​	18.4​
Aitken	39	738	5.0	35.1​	18.0​
Lodge	38	334	10.2	20.9​	17.0​
Ellie	18	337	5.1	16.9​	16.4​
Murchie	27	363	6.9	20.2​	13.2​
Volkman	4	49	7.5	24.5​	12.3​

As you can see, Addin Fonua-Blake is better than I expected, Aitken will be missed as our overall tackle leader and Jazz is fairly efficient as is Bunty.
Niukore is slightly disappointing but given he played centre a lot, more understandable.

Niukore only the one game at centre last season I think

 

[Warriorsitsouryear]

In his first year his value was immense. 20 try/ try assists in 16 games. Attacking threat and not really exposed in defence so much. We prioritised blooding him and gifting him experience to the point we lost Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. We treated him very well.

Last year his attacking contribution was limited. 14 try/ try assists in 22 games. Plus he was exposed in defence. He seemed off. Then he signed for the broncos and hadn’t repay our faith.

All good - he had family to look out for. It’s pro sport. But the goodwill towards him disappeared. In hindsight he was to green for first grade and we paid for it to develop him then he left before we got the benefit.

Maybe wasn't too green to play in the halves though! Have a second rower look after him like many teams do.

 

[Swanny]

Reece should have played stand off and we might have made the playoffs.
Reece's defence is no worse than Sam Walkers's. Reece is an uber bad fullback while you can hide a 5 8th.

I will never forget Manly relentlessly targeting him when he came off the bench at 6. It was beyond ugly. As others have said when you don’t control the middle it doesn’t matter who you put next to him as his minder, he can still be isolated.

 

[Mullayo]

Niukore only the one game at centre last season I think

Yeah, 6 at interchange though and 5 at lock and 1 at prop plus only 2 in second row.

So he may be a victim or shifting roles.
Thankfully, in those two 2nd row games, he only missed 4 tackles and made nearly 70.
So 35 tackles with 2 misses in 67 mins is hopefully what we get week in week out.

Actually I had a data entry error and his MTs were 18 not 40 for the season. SO I take that back. And he's already in my Supercoach team.

 

[warriorsfan92]

Team list should be out tomorrow?

 

[Wrighty]

I will never forget Manly relentlessly targeting him when he came off the bench at 6. It was beyond ugly. As others have said when you don’t control the middle it doesn’t matter who you put next to him as his minder, he can still be isolated.

Even at full back he got thugged in his first season and no one stood up for him. Tolman got him in a head lock during the wrestle and held him there for about 30 seconds applying extreme pressure. Our guys didn't react. Walsh playing on the periphery more this year may have been a consequence of the roughing up he went through.

Another ugly moment was the Sharks wrenching on purpose Chad Townsends arm our of its socket on purpose on his first hit up for us and they took him out for the rest of the season.

Doesn't just happen to us though. I saw the Storm forwards physically assault Albert Kelly on his first hit up and wrench that ear protector off his head and he was slightly concussed from the treatment afterwards and completely ineffective for the rest of that match.

In some ways if you like thuggery then you have come to the right league. The NRL is the most skillful but also the toughest and meanest league in the world.

 

[Mr Brownstone]

Yeah, 6 at interchange though and 5 at lock and 1 at prop plus only 2 in second row.

So he may be a victim or shifting roles.
Thankfully, in those two 2nd row games, he only missed 4 tackles and made nearly 70.
So 35 tackles with 2 misses in 67 mins is hopefully what we get week in week out.

Actually I had a data entry error and his MTs were 18 not 40 for the season. SO I take that back. And he's already in my Supercoach team.

In mine as well.

 

[Mullayo]

Metric update: Entered the teams' stats for tackles, missed tackles, errors, penalties against, run yards, tackle busts, line-breaks, tries, try assists...

I then normalised them all for 40mins the standard forward's start.
You can just double it for a back's estimated output and adjust up and down according to each particular forward's role.

I just guesstimated the relative values for each for the time being, multiplied each of the positives by the value ascribed, then added them together.

I then did the same for all the negatives errors, penalties, missed tackles etc. then I subtracted that total from the positives grand total and presto.: Who is good and who is not.

Currently, the metric likes anyone whose name begins with an A. ie. Addin Fonua-Blake, Afoa and Ale.

Maybe it's just playing with us? Ale has a small sample size, averaging only 23 minutes per game but 92 metres in that short time, so it's somewhat skewed. Still, he becomes interesting.
Next in line was Niukore which is lucky as he has the longest contract at the club at 4 years and 600k per.

Also fascinating is the metric likes Kosi fifth and the first of all the backs—His line-breaks (.92pg), metres (105pg) and tries (8) overcome his errors (1.3pg) and missed tackles (25%).

Let's hope he just naturally improves the D with age and experience, as we really need his power and line breaking ability.

Next back (down 5-6 spots) is Montoya for similar reasons with similar problems. Then Arthars and Dallin Watene-Zelezniak.

Five spots lower are the cluster of Vailea, Rocco and Pompey. I'd pick Rocco at the RC simply for his superior D and just wear the lesser attacking stats,

So it's Kosi and Rocco for me and Arthars back on loan.

 

[Brother Faisal]

Sort of seems approximately right. I'm actually making an in-depth team defence metric as we speak.

Walsh missed a (Worriers) team leading 56 tackles overall at 35.2% miss rate. The worst defensive FB in the league. He also had 38 errors, good for 2nd equal in the entire NRL with another overrated Bronco Cobbo. That's 1.7 errors per game, folks!

Dallin Watene-Zelezniak missed 21 times but barely breaks a sweat, making a paltry 4.3 tackles a game, for a 21.2% whiff rate. He also has 24 errors in only 18 games, ranked equal 25th worst overall in the entire NRL.

Kosi is next worst with a 24.5% whiff rate and 16 errors in only 12 games for the same ErPG rate as Dallin Watene-Zelezniak with 1.3.

Montoya (26.9 MT%) with only 3.8 completed tackles per game and 10 errors (ErPG of .6) is another one I'm off.
Vailea is just as bad with a 27.3 whiff rate and a .8 ErPG

Best of the bad bunch, Pompey (18.2 MT%) is crap too with 15 errors. Boys, I'm looking at Rocco Berry with rose-coloured glasses. Come back all is forgiven! Rocco actually averages 15.4 tackles per game and a 9.6 MT%. Seriously, the guy plays like a 2nd rower with an okay .6 ErPG.

The sad facts are our back 5 were the worst in the NRL by a country mile. We should have kept Hiku for sure.

That’s an interesting stat line that makes sense.

Berry was reasonably good defensively but died with the ball so much on offense it didn’t warrant him a regular spot.

Goes back a lot to what Sup42 was saying about grappling and sticking tackles. We’re the worst in the league at sticking tackles.

 

[JaggedJ]

There were 7-8 games that were over by halftime. Probably conceded 350+ points in those games combined.

An overall lift in attitude and belief and we're already 200 points better off at a minimum.

If that doesn't happen we could employ Superman, Batman, and Aquaman and we'd still end up bottom 4 (or is bottom 5 now the sad land with an extra team?)

 

[Mullayo]

Yeah, a couple of times Berry didn't know what the tackle count was, but that's to be expected for a rookie union guy.
Berry was super busy with twice the number of tackles Pompey made and 3-5 times that of any of the wingers who were 3.1 Kosi, 3.8 Montoya and 4.3 Dallin Watene-Zelezniak (dis) respectively.

Right centre is defensive firsts and foremost, I think he's worth a shot considering Vailea misses a whopping Waslh-esque 27% of his tackle attempts.

Arthars was almost as good on D with 13.8 tackles per game. and better on attack, but sadly he's gone.

Name--missed Ts------Ts made--MT%---T per G

Vailea	35	93	27.3	9.3​
Rocco	13	123	9.6	15.4​
Pompey	33	146	18.4	7.3​

That’s an interesting stat line that makes sense.

Berry was reasonably good defensively but died with the ball so much on offense it didn’t warrant him a regular spot.

Goes back a lot to what Sup42 was saying about grappling and sticking tackles. We’re the worst in the league at sticking tackles

 

[The Truth]

I've said it once and il continue to say it.
No point looking at our backs defensive stats when the boys in the middle are giving away 70m on every set. The opposition didn't even need to go wide.
We were absolutely embarrassing in the middle last year. We regularly gave away 70m sets and punched back with mid 30s.
The best defensive back 5 in the game would struggle to control a roll on like that.

I really hope we can offer more in the middle this year but I just can't see us having enough impact.

So many times in the past when the game gets sped up, in my opinion, teams incorrectly focus on having mobile second rower body types playing out of position as a counter to it.
Problem is, everyone gets tired and if you don't have size on your team to steamroll those tired defenders or speed on the outside you lose the ability to take advantage of it.
I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Tragic]

You are the biggest Dallin Watene-Zelezniak fan on this forum, so out of interest what do you calculate his negative points differential impact to be?

I dont mind Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, (although those defensive stats look bad) but if he is on the money he was being paid when we signed him he is probably our biggest issue in terms of squad balance.

 

[Tragic]

There were 7-8 games that were over by halftime. Probably conceded 350+ points in those games combined.

An overall lift in attitude and belief and we're already 200 points better off at a minimum.

If that doesn't happen we could employ Superman, Batman, and Aquaman and we'd still end up bottom 4 (or is bottom 5 now the sad land with an extra team?)

With 200 points for attitude plus the 200 from Walsh leaving, man we are gonna be top 4 this year.

 

[Mullayo]

I dont mind Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, (although those defensive stats look bad) but if he is on the money he was being paid when we signed him he is probably our biggest issue in terms of squad balance.

That's my issue with Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, bang for buck. At 800k for two years, he's on the same money as Addin Fonua-Blake abd Tohu Harris yet they are actually premium players, and he's a run of the mill replacement level wing.

Niukore is the other one we have to watch. I see he's on $625k for 4 years. He needs to be a plus player, or we've blown a lot of cash. He's the right age and has experience and looks the part, just never settled in a full time role. Fingers crossed.

 

[Fonzie]

That's my issue with Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, bang for buck. At 800k for two years, he's on the same money as Addin Fonua-Blake abd Tohu Harris yet they are actually premium players, and he's a run of the mill replacement level wing.

Niukore is the other one we have to watch. I see he's on $625k for 4 years. He needs to be a plus player, or we've blown a lot of cash. He's the right age and has experience and looks the part, just never settled in a full time role. Fingers crossed.

There’s no reason to think we’re paying Dallin Watene-Zelezniak $800k a year. That was his old bulldogs deal, and they paid a chunk of that in 2021 and 2022. He won’t be on anything like that this year.

 

[Mullayo]

There’s no reason to think we’re paying Dallin Watene-Zelezniak $800k a year. That was his old bulldogs deal, and they paid a chunk of that in 2021 and 2022. He won’t be on anything like that this year.

That's what ZeroTackle say he's on, $800k. SMH have it at $600k
Probably why the Bulldogs just gifted him to us, to get out from under the massive contract. Either way, he's not worth half that.

 

[Five&Last]

That's what ZeroTackle say he's on, $800k. SMH have it at $600k
Probably why the Bulldogs just gifted him to us, to get out from under the massive contract. Either way, he's not worth half that.

The talk was that Bulldogs subsidised half of that $800k for the remainder of his contract to get us to take him off their hands.

But I agree he's not even worth half that and is still overpaid on our books.

 

[Noitall]

That's my issue with Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, bang for buck. At 800k for two years, he's on the same money as Addin Fonua-Blake abd Tohu Harris yet they are actually premium players, and he's a run of the mill replacement level wing.

Niukore is the other one we have to watch. I see he's on $625k for 4 years. He needs to be a plus player, or we've blown a lot of cash. He's the right age and has experience and looks the part, just never settled in a full time role. Fingers crossed.

I think you could definitely mount an argument that Roger Tuivasa-Sheck wasn’t worth his salary in stints of his career with us but was probably looked at as invaluable for the players with his leadership, work ethic and high standards as far as training etc was concerned. I wonder if Dallin Watene-Zelezniak is held in the same regard being a Kiwi international and former Kiwi captain. I agree Dallin Watene-Zelezniak isn’t worth that and was signed on fullback money at the bulldogs, but it didn’t work out. Would be interesting with Roger Tuivasa-Sheck eyeing a return to league whether he would be looked at as a replacement, seems a grey area what Dallin Watene-Zelezniak salary is past the bulldogs contribution.