On Maloney he has won two premierships with different clubs and was in a grand final with us. He has been picked for NSW despite his missed tackles, so clearly not every Aussie coach only looks at missed tackles when deciding on a players merits and clearly some teams can be successful (even win the comp) with players who have bad missed tackle stats.
Fair comment, but this is the Warriors we are talking about.
Seriously we have one decent tackler in the side week in week out (Mannering), he is injured for two games and we get smashed so I don't think we have the option of having any defenders who can slack. NSW and the Sharks can carry Maloney because he is so good at other things such as supporting ball runners and the teams have all round better defenders, especially the Sharks.
Vete missed two tackles in 29 minutes of game time. The whole team only missed 25 in the whole game.
That is a high percentage for the number of tackles he actually made (14) although to be fair his overall season average is about the same as Jason Taumalolo and Jesse Bromwich but three times as much as James Graham. So he is not a great defender and his performance should not be glossed over considering the overall Warriors defence.
On the other hand his hitups were seriously impressive, over 12 metres a carry which by NRL standards is right out in front ahead of even Jason Taumalolo, but given that some Australian coaches can bollock a player for breathing I think he would hear about his defence.
Seeing Vete up close he would be a fearsome sight to any tackler. The amount of muscle he carries would really crunch any defender. I question why
SK doesn't having him running more directly like Joe Vagana used to. Polynesians are balanced runners so his hitups would be more effective if he could use his balance instead of turning his back. Maybe
SK is teaching him to offload though.
I will admit that his carries were so productive another club like the Sharks might be interested in him for that alone.