New Zealand Warriors will enter their third NRL season with Andrew Webster as coach and Andrew McFadden leading the recruitment/development department, which has seen a strong pipeline of young talent established and two different seasons of NRL footy on the field. Here are five funky storylines to serve you over the festive period when NZ Warriors yarns will be shared around Aotearoa...

1) Filling the Shaun Johnson/Addin Fonua-Blake void

There are some slight differences in stats across the interwebs, so let's keep this simple and say that Shaun Johnson was top-three for average kick metres per game last season and Addin Fonua-Blake was top-three for average post contact metres per game. Both lads have departed Mt Smart and there are clear gaps that need to be filled for the 2025 season.

NZW also finished 13th with a 9-14-1 record last season with Johnson and Fonua-Blake churning out lots of mahi, so it's unclear if either of those stats are strongly linked with winning footy. Johnson's presence at halfback didn't lead to wins for NZW and they were able to win games in which Fonua-Blake had less metres or didn't play.

Tanah Boyd adds kicking juice to the halves mix, which compliments the strengths/weaknesses of Te Maire Martin, Luke Metcalf and Chanel Harris-Tavita. Having more kicking variety in terms of who is kicking and what kicks are being offered is something to watch out for, as well as whether lots of kicking metres is even important.

James Fisher-Harris will take Fonua-Blake's spot in the middle and this provides the most interesting insight as Fisher-Harris is a proven winner who doesn't offer the running oomph of Fonua-Blake. This is evident in a simple comparison of Fisher-Harris' 128m/game on his way to a fourth NRL championship in a row as a starting prop vs Fonua-Blake's 175m/game in a losing team.

In Aotearoa we believe in mana and Fisher-Harris will share his immense wairua throughout Mt Smart, which feels more valuable than running metres. NZW also finished third for average run metres per game last year and second for average kick return metres, so there are all sorts of other channels to work down the field without the PCM king.

2) What's Tohu Harris up to?

Many viewed the 2024 season as the demise of Tohu Harris and his basic mahi looks similar to the previous years...

2021: 15 games, 102m/game, 95.6% tackling

2022: 15 games, 131m/game, 94.2% tackling

2023: 23 games, 139m/game, 93.6% tackling

2024: 14 games, 132m/game, 95.3% tackling

After 20+ games in his first four NRL seasons, Harris has played 20+ games twice in his last eight seasons. When below 20 games, Harris has hovered between 14-17 games and even his 68mins/game in 2023 wasn't much higher than his 65mins/game this year. Harris didn't appear as effective last season and yet most of the experienced NZW players had similar seasons as Harris in not looking their best.

Harris may dip into the Aotearoa's performance enhancing nutrients and churn out big minutes as a middle forward next season, which is especially intriguing if he has Fisher-Harris and Mitchell Barnett beside him. Harris could be a useful bench presence where he provides coach Webster with reliability and the skillset to impact how NZW are playing mid-game. Harris has the most uncertainty of the established NZW players and there are a wide range of outcomes to keep track of next season.

3) The young wave

Rolling off the Harris intrigue is the abundance of eager young forwards who have the power, speed and aggression that Harris lacks. Giving more game time to the likes of Tom Ale, Demitric Vaimauga, Leka Halasima, Zyon Maiu'u and Tanner Stowers-Smith could increases the need for Harris to balance out their fizz?

Coach Webster has kept a lid on the younger lads during his time at Mt Smart, slowly developing them alongside McFadden with the type of intention and purpose that hasn't been displayed too often before. After at least two NRL summer training blocks and a bunch of NRL games, most of these young forwards are ready to get consistent opportunities coming off the bench.

An important wrinkle in the development of these young forwards is how Vaimauga and Halasima have played edge and middle in NRL and NSW Cup. This makes them fantastic bench options, especially as Halasima made his debut playing through the middle before moving to centre to cover injuries.

This applies to Jacob Laban as well, who is primarily an edge forward who dabbled in a bit of middle forward. Ali Leiataua is primarily a centre, but he can cover every backline position and there is no youngster more versatile than Eddie Ieremia-Toeava in the NZW pipeline. While they will be coached to shine in their best position, getting game time and adding value to the team comes from playing whatever role is required and the NZW young wave is ready to do exactly that.

4) The Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad/Roger Tuivasa-Sheck/Taine Tuaupiki trinity

My personal NZW fullback rankings: Tuaupiki, Nicoll-Klokstad, Tuivasa-Sheck.

What I reckon NZW fullback rankings are: Nicoll-Klokstad, Tuaupiki, Tuivasa-Sheck.

The best thing here is that Nicoll-Klokstad and Tuivasa-Sheck provide high quality mahi in all backline positions except for halfback. NZW won games with Nicoll-Klokstad playing in the halves and at centre, plus his funky skillset was on show in an NZ Kiwis win over Papua New Guinea. Tuivasa-Sheck is the ideal player to have in an NRL team because he shift positions without a major drop off in his performance, although Tuivasa-Sheck lacks the subtle skills that NZW need to be more potent in attack.

Tuaupiki has the speed and skill that the other two lack, which is also aligned with what NZW need the most. Tuaupiki has rolled through two winning seasons as the main fullback for the NSW Cup Warriors with 64% wins in 2023 and 58% wins last season, which included a hefty development in his kicking as he went from 8.3 kicking metres/game to 101.2 kicking metres/game.

NZW have also leaned towards winning with Tuaupiki at fullback in the NRL. In 2023 they went 3-2 with Tuaupiki playing and this season NZW were 3-3 with Tuaupiki at fullback, which includes a loss in which Tuaupiki only played 8 minutes. Tuaupiki won 50% of his NRL games this year, which is interesting when compared to 28% for Tuivasa-Sheck and 29% for Nicoll-Klokstad.

Nicoll-Klokstad offers similar running output to Tuivasa-Sheck the fullback. This season Nicoll-Klokstad averaged 202m/game last season and Tuivasa-Sheck has had averaged more than 202m/game in just two of his six season as fullback prior to his return in 2024. The funky thing here is that Tuaupiki can get through 200m in an NRL game as well with 200+ run metres in two of his four games as an 80mins fullback.

Tuaupiki had 180m and 198m in his other two 80-minute games as fullback, so don't overlook the little fellas production. Like the local juniors, Tuaupiki is in his third summer of NRL training with coach Webster and he seems finely tuned to have more opportunities this season. Coach Webster is conservative in his selections though so he will likely start with Nicoll-Klokstad at fullback and we'll be tracking how these three fit together early next season.

5) Andrew Webster's style of footy

Everything was delightful in 2023 and NZW footy was kinda stinky in 2024. This could fall into an easily digestible story of coach Webster's style working well until it was sussed out by other teams. Some of that is probably true, but coach Webster also had more tricky elements to deal with in his second season at Mt Smart and he was still able to provide winning plans in patches of adversity last season.

The best phase of NZW footy last season was back to back wins vs Panthers and Dolphins. Johnson and Harris didn't play those games, Fonua-Blake had 62m vs Panthers and didn't play vs Dolphins. Two different fullbacks were used (Tuaupiki/Watene-Zelezniak) and two different starting hookers were used (Wayde Egan/Paul Roache). Bunty Afoa was starting prop in both wins (as part of his 5-4 season record).

Coach Webster did something right in those games, at the very least he tweaked the NZW playing style to incorporate a wider group of players. It still doesn't make much sense that NZW played their best footy without many of their best players, but coach Webster was able to lead two different teams to wins while battling adversity.

Some of these notes below are because of coach Webster's selection choices, most are niggly things that aren’t aligned with winning lots of games…

Notable lads from 2023 who played less than 15 games in 2024: Harris, Marata Niukore, Adam Pompey, Rocco Berry, Afoa.

No halves played 18+ games last season aside from Harris-Tavita and he played significantly less minutes because he had a bunch of games coming off the bench.

2023 debutants: Demitric Sifakula (4 games in 2024), Ali Leiataua (6)

2024 debutants: Jacob Laban (7), Leka Halasima (4), Moala Graham-Taufa (3), Zyon Maiu'u (1)

NZW were second for average 'one pass hit ups' and 13th for 'general play passes' per game. This could reflect the simplified attacking system using lots of different combos compared to 2023, while NZW also had the stat profile of a pretty good rugby league team (per games)...

Completion rate: 82% - 1st

Tackled in opposition 20: 35.1 - 1st

Kick return metres: 2nd

Run metres conceded: 1,373 - 13th

Offloads conceded: 6.2 - 17th

Penalties conceded: 5.1 - 11th

Penalties awarded: 5.7 - 5th

Missed tackles: 31.8 - 14th

NZW were 14th for offloads (7.2 per game) and 13th for dummy half runs (5.6) These pockets don't seem to be a focus of coach Webster's general style, which is fair considering it's hard to have lots of offloads and a high completion rate, plus NZW were third for run metres without much dummy half running.

All of which sets up coach Webster's third NRL season as coach of NZW. He has shown a winning recipe, there are signs that he can adapt to the players who are available for that week and he inspired his players to win games they weren't expected to win. Coach Webster has also felt the lingering curse of Mt Smart which has consistently pulled NZW teams back to reality after a good season or two and now we wait to see how coach Webster will lead the 2025 team.

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