Team List Dragons vs Warriors - [Round 10, 2025]

Like others, I'd have preferred Laban to coming into this side on the edge with Niukore staying in the middle. But given his limited first grade experience this year, I can understand wanting to start him off the bench again. Capewell in the centres is definitely the safe approach here and I back him to keep Suli in check. If RTS can indeed play then a lot of headaches get resolved and we can move Capes back to the second row and Marata back to the middle. Overall though, this side is more than capable enough of doing a job on the dragons. They have named a super young side that look ripe for the picking.
 
There is no way we line up as named. Part of thinking must be around bench makeup and how we nullify the Dragons big men - 2024 they smashed us over there with out tiny bench. Here’s how I think we counter Leilua and Co and cover our OBs.

1. TT
2. DWZ
3. CNK - prefer Charnze here for a game or three to allow TT back to FB with DWZ in
4. Pompey
5. RTS - no brainer for me - back the left with Pomps
6. CHT
7. Metcalf
8. Ford - starts ahead of Niukore who goes to the bench to come and cover Leilua and their big middles from minute 25
9. Egan
10. Barnett
11. Halasima
12. Capewell
13. Clark

14. healy
15. Niukore
15. Laban
17. Demetric

18. Boyd
19. Afoa

No way you move Pompey to right. He will stay on left and that edge should be very solid. Right edge I think Charne can plug that hole left by berry and Ali, and will be solid defensively working the DWZ. TT to provide a different type of impact from 1 especially on attack.

Dragons will try and go through us. We hold the middle and on them, then I think we have way too much class for them to beat us. Still always a challenge playing them at their place.
 
All of the warriors socials for weeks have suggested that RTS is ahead of schedule re his injury. So I'm holding out hope we see a late change that puts RTS into the lineup. But if he's less than 90% ready, I'd give him another week and have faith in Capewah to hold out for a week in the center position. Given the Berry and Ali injuries, we can't afford RTS out again for any more extended time. In any case, I don't think we need him to win this game.

I'm sure Webby has learnt his lesson from last year where it was effectively 17 vs 13 as we had no bench. We have a solid forward rotation for this game with Laban coming in, so I back the boys to win the middle, as they have done for most of the year. Their pack has changed a lot since last year. Francis Molo and Blake Lawrie carved up against us last year and neither are playing against us this weekend. They've been largely replaced by youngsters who've only had a handful of nrl games this year. So I back our pack to do a job on theirs.

If we can do that, we should have too much pts for the dragons. Their halves combination is probably the only pair that is even less experienced than ours. After the high of last week knocking off the red hot cowboys who are a top 6 team, it would be a massive letdown to lose to these grubs again.
 
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