Three Themes Of New Zealand Warriors Recruitment & Development Ahead Of The 2025 NRL Season
New Zealand Warriors enter the kiwi summer with three important trends framing their recruitment and development. The South Island continues to produce high quality rugby league youngsters, NZW have identified holes that young Aussies can fill and the slow brew development is crucial in producing lads who are ready for sustainable NRL contributions. These three themes have emerged during the two Andys era with Andrew McFadden building a pool of players who have the skills and mentality for coach Andrew Webster's style of play.
When Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and Canterbury Rugby League combined forces for a well broadcasted partnership, many stumbled into their NZW anxiety. There are many benefits for players and coaches in Canterbury with the Bulldogs partnership, however every NRL team is recruiting from Aotearoa and this is broad idea is important to remember when Aussies are chatting about catchment areas and local nurseries.
Other NRL teams are recruiting from men and women from Christchurch. Just because Bulldogs sussed this partnership with CRL, it doesn't mean that every rugby league youngster in Christchurch has to enter the Bulldogs system. Such partnerships can be overblown for the fear they spark in NZW fans, especially when NZW have a sublime relationship with back to back National Secondary Schools Tournament champions St Thomas of Canterbury.
With those back to back titles, STOC are undisputedly the best rugby league school in Aotearoa. That tells the story of rugby league's growth first and foremost, as well as the strength of the STOC rugby league system which has Andrew Auimatagi at the helm. Auimatagi has been a stalwart of rugby league in Christchurch and his links to NZW stretch back to at least 2017 when this yarn (about STOC rugby league talent) stated that Auimatagi was an NZW talent scout.
Fast forward to the present moment and STOC is the best rugby league school in Aotearoa, with Auimatagi their long-term coach and also coaching in the NZW Christchurch academy. The STOC team who won the 2024 NSST had a bunch of NZW juniors with fullback Meihana Pauling playing in the NZW Under 19 SG Ball team while still at school, as well as Lennox Tuiloma, Isaiah Savea, Jackson Stewart, Zeke Faga-Ieti, Immanuel Neal and Christiano Elia who were sprinkled throughout the NZW pipeline this year.
Neal won the NSST MVP award, despite being 16-years-old and named in the NSST U16 team. Elia was also named in the NSST U16 team and he played for the U14 NZW team last year, before playing in the halves for STOC championship team. Those are fabulous indicators of how talented these lads are and another hefty indicator is how Neal, Stweart, Pauling, Faga-Ieti and Tuiloma played in both STOC championship winning grand finals.
The sneakiest, most impressive nugget is about Tuiloma though. Tuiloma was a standout for the NZW Harold Matthews Cup U17 team who won the NSWRL competition as the starting lock, where he won Player of the Match and he's now gone back to back with NSST championships. Savea also played in the U17 final, coming off the bench as a hooker and along with Tuiloma and Neal, they have another year at school.
South Island excellence isn't only evident in the STOC/NZW connection as Balclutha's Kairus Booth played in the NZW U17 team as well. Booth moved to Auckland to play in the U17 competition and returned to the deep south to settle back into South Otago High School. Speaking to Otago Daily Times, Booth highlighted the growth of rugby league in Otago:
"We have really good systems and coaching in Otago for age grade teams, and the Southern Zone Scorpions is an awesome set up to be involved with"
This came after NZW established a stronger link with Southern Zone Rugby League earlier this year. There is a academy brewing in Otago as well as a presence in Invercargill, Timaru and Greymouth. NZW not only have a hearty relationship with the best rugby league school in Aotearoa STOC, they are also spreading their tentacles throughout the South Island and this is on show in how the Harold Matthews Cup winning team had Booth, Lennox and Savea from the South Island.
This is where the slow brew theme weaves into the mix as the younger NZW juniors have the opportunity to work through the NSWRL competition pipeline. However, it will take time for players who have worked from Harold Matthews Cup to Jersey Flegg Cup (U21s) to decrease the gap between development pathways in Australia and Aotearoa.
Aotearoa’s grassroots footy is growing in quantity and quality. NZRL is offering plenty of representative footy and the NSST brings the best schools together, while Aotearoa Maori Rugby League continues to offer a smorgasbord of tournaments to boost the quality of age-grade footy. This is still a work in progress though and NZW have been deliberate in how they develop their youngsters from around Aotearoa.
NZW also have Tanner Stowers-Smith (Halswell) and Makaia Tafua (Linwood) playing NSW Cup this year from Christchurch, despite both being eligible for the U21 Jersey Flegg team. They weren't graced with the full pipeline experience of playing against the best U17s from New South Wales, however they did start in U19 SG Ball last year and have progressed through to consistent NSW Cup this year.
The two Andys had previous stints with NZW and they would have watched many NZW youngsters quickly progress to the NRL squad before struggling with the grizzly week to week grind of NRL footy. Any youngster can have a good NRL game, but NZW have always struggled to develop young players for the NRL grind where the glitz and glam of being an NRL player meet bumps, bruises, fatigue and being exposed by opposition teams.
While the best youngsters have graduated swiftly from SG Ball to NSW Cup, without much Jersey Flegg footy in between, the quick rise slows down at the NSW Cup level. Given the history of NZW youngsters dropping out of NRL contributions, it makes sense that the two Andys are slowly integrating youngsters like Ali Leiataua, Jacob Laban, Demitric Sifakula and Zyon Maiu'u into NRL footy.
Most notably, they are showing up for a similar grind in NSW Cup where they are playing in Australia every second week and play the same style as the NRL team. Leiataua is 21-years-old and he's played 26 games of NSW Cup. Laban is 20-years-old and he's on 32 games. Maiu'u is 21-years-old and he's played 43 games, while 19-year-old Leka Halasima has already churned through 30 NSW Cup games.
Stowers-Smith is 20-years-old and he has played 36 games of NSW Cup. Assuming he stays on track with NZW, Stowers-Smith could debut under the guidance of James Fisher-Harris and with 40+ games of NSW Cup experience at 21/22yrs. Aside from an overdose of injuries and suspensions, most NZW youngsters will enter the NRL with at least 20 games of NSW Cup footy to their name. That means experience in all the NRL nitty-gritty such as nutrition, recovery, travel, managing emotions etc as well as lots of games against NSW Cup players they could line up against in the NRL.
NZW continue to lure young Australians to Mt Smart and Sam Healey is the latest in a long list. Healey worked through Harold Matthews (U16 at the time), SG Ball, Jersey Flegg and NSW Cup in the Cronulla Sharks system as a lively hooker. This reinforces the difference between Australia and Aotearoa as such comprehensive paths to NRL are just being established in Aotearoa, while that path is well trodden in Australia.
The key theme in recruiting young Aussies is that NZW have identified the need for play-makers who have been on that well trodden path in Australia. Healey is slightly different because he isn't a half, but he does appear to offer a spark out of dummy half and this play-making around the ruck that has been cooked in the oven of the Australian system, is something that is not present in the likes of Tafua, Freddy Lussick and Jacob Auloa.
Tafua and Auloa are high quality hookers from Aotearoa, who are more similar to Lussick than they are Wayde Egan. Their tough, rugged, crafty mahi has been on show in NSW Cup and Jersey Flegg this season (Auloa started in U19s, mostly played U21s with a bit of NSW Cup). Healey’s attacking ability is a point of difference and he has ample experience with 37 games of Jersey Flegg mixed in with 36 games of NSW Cup.
The Niche Cache has documented the theme of NZW signing young halves from Australia in depth. Luke Hanson (Panthers), Jesse Soric (Byron Bay) and Tallan Egan (Lithgow) were joined by Jack Thompson mid-season after Thompson left the Knights U17s team to help steer NZW U17s to their success. Jett Cleary joins NZW for 2025 and like Hanson did prior to moving to Aotearoa, he worked his way through the Panthers system to play U19 and U21s this year.
NZW have lots of halves from Aotearoa in the mix too (Caleb Laiman, Maui Winitana-Patelesio) with three of the four halves named in NSST U16/18 teams aligned with NZW (Tyrone Hurt-Pickering, Rico Toeava, Christiano Elia) as well as Tyson Hansen who was named in the NSST U18 squad and played in the team who won Harold Matthews Cup.
All of this can change over summer as players move between NRL systems without much noise, but having four young Aussie halves this year and adding Cleary for next season, makes this a heavy duty theme. The most important observation for this theme is that young Aussies want to move to Mt Smart with lads like Cleary and Healey joining NZW because they believe that it is the best spot for their development.
Cleary and Healey also have fathers who played NRL footy. Matua Ivan probably steered Jett in the direction of Mt Smart because he trusted the two Andys with Jett's development and Mitch Healey must share the same confidence in his son's move to Aotearoa. Two former NRL players who are saluting the NZW development mahi.
The combination of these three themes reinforces the optimistic tone of a stink NRL season. NZW are embracing South Island talent and have a direct link to the best rugby league school in Aotearoa which is in Christchurch, while also being an attractive destination for young Aussies. The connective tissue between these themes is how NZW are building a pipeline that properly equips youngsters for NRL footy and while that slow brew didn't help them win NRL games this season, it is instrumental in building a sustainable supply of talent that can add value to the NRL team.
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