General Xmas fun - warriors best centre
- Thread starter wizard of Tauranga
- Start date
NZWarriors.com
His attacking ability and combination with Francis Meli was absolutely devastating to defences. Toopi had the skill, confidence and pace to break defences open and benefited from having a killer like Meli outside him.
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Glad u mentioned Tea. Bit of a forgotten man when it comes to things like this, but gave good honest toil during his time.
Feel we're still waiting for someone to come along and really claim that 2nd centre spot, as u say most the contenders best years were at other clubs so gotta go Jerome as well (altho capable of having the odd mare} but a strong runner, formed a decent combo with Manu (ball in hand anyway) and points for that time he broke Andrew Johns jaw
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Just comparing some of the candidates for that second spot
Dean bell 19 games, 3 tries.
Tea ropati 72 games, 26 tries.
Brent Tate 48 games, 12 tries.
Jerome ropati 145 games (93 at center) 54 tries.
Konrad hurrell 71 games, 41 tries.
PETA hiku 73 games, 19 tries.
Adam Pompey 120 games (98 at center) 34 tries.
Dean bell 19 games, 3 tries.
Tea ropati 72 games, 26 tries.
Brent Tate 48 games, 12 tries.
Jerome ropati 145 games (93 at center) 54 tries.
Konrad hurrell 71 games, 41 tries.
PETA hiku 73 games, 19 tries.
Adam Pompey 120 games (98 at center) 34 tries.
Durability is his super power.
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To me a good centre is about setting up as many tries as scoring them
If we're only counting the games they played centre like Ropati, we should do the same for Pomps, who's had 20 games started at wing or interchange.
So he's still 33 away, but you'd expect him to get that over the next 2 seasons. I was really surprised that he'll likely be 2nd most experienced by the end of 2026. He's done fantastic considering a lot of fans generally see him as a fill in
Ropati only played a total of 72 for the Warriors according to RLP (for some reason it excludes World Club Challenge). 54 at Centre for 21 tries, goes to 58 games & 29 tries if you include WCC
*I'm referencing Tea
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It was last season and he got torched for it but it was that game against the broncos that he almost pulled it out of the fire with those Hiku offloads. Unfortunately he grabbed a jersey on the second one but I knew then that he was really starting to put it together. I was bit disappointed how he fell off a few tackles last season and a few mistakes but a massive confidence player that you could see in the video of his extension that he knew he belonged. I mentioned Hiku yesterday because I thought he was so impressive with setting his winger up but fragile defensively at times as mentioned by others
Based on what I’m looking at the games I mentioned were solely at centre for each player - 120 NRL games in total for Pompey, 98 at centre.
I probably should've included kata 93 games for 46 tries- deserves too be in the discussion...
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ANTHONY GELLING
2003 Toopi and Meli were on fire I think it was 40 or so tries between them.
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He wins best Warriors centre to shit in a hotel hallway
