Recruitment Warriors 2024/2025 Recruitment & Retention

Warriors 2024/2025 Recruitment & Retention Discussion
key: T = Team option, M = Mutual option, P = Player option, D = Development contract

Confirmed Top 30 2024: 28/30
Confirmed Development 2024: 5/6

Confirmed Top 30 2025: 25/30
Confirmed Development 2025: 1/6

2025 Gains: Nil
2025 Losses: Addin Fonua-Blake (Sharks)
 
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Can anyone post this, please?
They’ve come from all over the NRL landscape, mostly because the Warriors themselves were trudging over the same foreign terrain to keep the competition afloat.

Shaun Johnson and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad had to come home. Addin Fonua-Blake had to find a new one.

Dallin Watene-Zelezniak came with a $400,000 sweetener from Canterbury; Jackson Ford came just looking for a crack and more than 20 minutes a game.

Coach Andrew Webster’s own road to the Warriors saw him captain-coaching at Connecticut and cleaning up rubbish at Hull KR. At the Warriors, he has pulled together a squad sourced predominantly from outside New Zealand, to the point 14 of his starting 17 against the Broncos have been recruited from NRL rivals.

For a Kiwi outfit determined to be a development club, things have been backwards in more ways than one – with around $2.5 million invested in star forwards Fonua-Blake, Tohu Harris and Marata Niukore dwarfing the money spent on Webster’s cut-price playmaking spine.

But then the Warriors know better than anyone, a pandemic means things are done a little differently.
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“A lot of the roster has been brought together by circumstances to a degree,” recruitment manager and former head coach Andrew McFadden says.

“For three years there’s been a bit of patching things up. But getting home last year the emphasis was on recruiting proven, quality, experienced players.”

The fingerprints of McFadden’s predecessor, Peter O’Sullivan – now with Wayne Bennett at the Dolphins – can still be seen on a Warriors roster that first came together in dribs and drabs. Harris was lured from Melbourne in mid-2017 as a key building block.

Fonua-Blake and Watene-Zelezniak were both opportunistic pick-ups in 2021 when the former “needed to get out of Sydney” and the latter came with the Bulldogs paying half his $800,000 to ease their salary cap pressure.

Johnson’s two-year homecoming deal – reportedly worth around $500,000 – was sorted relatively quickly in late 2021 when he was all but signed with Canterbury.

And then, no less than 24 roster comings and goings in 12 months turbo-charged the Warriors overhaul, with all but a few taking place before Webster took charge last November.

“We signed Mitch Barnett, Dylan Walker, Marata Niukore and Luke Metcalf all in a big hit,” chief executive Cameron George says.

“Mitch, Marata and Dylan Walker have played a fair bit of NRL, they’re resilient, tough and competitive. That’s what they are above all else.

“They want to win and you’ve seen that throughout their career, and that mongrel, that competitive mindset, was what we set off looking for.

Luke Metcalf wanted an NRL opportunity and then Charnze, on the back of Reece Walsh going home to Brisbane, it was the same thing for him.”

McFadden, who recommended Nicoll-Klokstad to the Raiders in 2019 before treading the same path back to Auckland last year, adds: “The truth with Charnze is that NZ is the only place he was going to play to his best because he needed to be with his family.”

Ford has proven one of the finds of the season after McFadden originally picked him up on a “modest” deal as little more than back-row back-up.

Five-eighth Te Maire Martin was in the same discussion until a broken leg cost him most of his 2023, his comeback for the finals covering Metcalf’s own season-ending hamstring tear.

Martin, Niukore, Johnson and Nicoll-Klokstad have all made their way back home, just as the Warriors did the same after two and a half years playing out of the Central Coast and Redcliffe.

But the biggest long-term win for the club is the chance to hang onto New Zealand’s best and brightest in the first place.

“We haven’t had a NSW Cup team or any junior rep teams for three years,” George says. “Even when we were in Australia and linked with Redcliffe, we could only play six players there under the system in place, we were sharing players around.

“So we just haven’t had pathways or opportunities for kids to come through in a Warriors jumper. Now we’ve got NSW Cup back and next year, SG Ball and Harold Matthews, Jersey Flegg, and then in 2025 we’re hoping to introduce an NRLW team.

“So what you saw in the NRL – a nomadic team travelling the east coast of Australia – that was all we had, we just didn’t have players coming through below that.

“You have to understand that we have had players being coached over the last year three years in first grade and they were still being coached on how to play the basics. From next year we’re going to be on equal footing with every other club.”

A winning team with a nation behind it helps too. More than 1200 applications landed with the club when trials were held last weekend to fill their expanded junior ranks for next year.
“We want to be a development club. That’s our philosophy and it’s important to us,” McFadden says.

“All our best Warriors teams of the past have been predominantly locally sourced players. We’ll always have to recruit from Australia of course, because that’s where the other 16 teams are, but we certainly want to look after our backyard first and foremost.

“In all honesty, rival NRL teams have used it against us when they’re talking to players, because we haven’t had the same opportunities to offer them.

“As long as we get our coaching structures and pathways right, we can be a real powerhouse in developing a strong contingent of kids. That’s not to say we won’t lose a Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, but we need to be bringing our own quality players through.”
 
Starting to see players from teams whose seasons are over being let go by their clubs. Eels have said Ofahiki Ogden is free to leave, apparently roosters have said Naufahu Whyte and Terrell May can go. Apparently with Crichton off to union they might keep May with that money, think he’d be a good get but wants to stay near family I think.
 
Starting to see players from teams whose seasons are over being let go by their clubs. Eels have said Ofahiki Ogden is free to leave, apparently roosters have said Naufahu Whyte and Terrell May can go. Apparently with Crichton off to union they might keep May with that money, think he’d be a good get but wants to stay near family I think.
Wow, Terrell May looks like he’s starting to gain some traction in first grade.
Big motor, big lad. Teams would be lining up.
Ogden looks handy as well. Can see why the Eels might want to off load, they have excess middles.
 
Starting to see players from teams whose seasons are over being let go by their clubs. Eels have said Ofahiki Ogden is free to leave, apparently roosters have said Naufahu Whyte and Terrell May can go. Apparently with Crichton off to union they might keep May with that money, think he’d be a good get but wants to stay near family I think.
Surely roosters didn’t tell May he can go… he was one of their best performers the last month. I’d snap him up in a second. Apparently storm want him.
 
That was a good article on our recruitment. The team was built over a few years with some good signings.

Coming into this year we were active in the market and brought in a lot of experience which has helped a lot. The recruitment also caught the eye of the coach before he came onboard.
 
Does anyone know a bit more about our wing stocks? After Montoya, DWZ and Kosi, realistically who is the next cab off the rank?

Do we have any potential stars coming through?

I've always like Cory Allen and at only 25 yrs old, he's got age on his side. I feel he would be an improvement over Montoya, but does he move the needle much? I'm not so sure and with our packed centres his versatility really would be lost here I guess
 
Does anyone know a bit more about our wing stocks? After Montoya, DWZ and Kosi, realistically who is the next cab off the rank?
Whilst I haven't seen anything directly from the club, Moala Graham-Taufa was celebrating on Facebook some form of signing alongside Cappy about 2 months ago. My guess is he's next in line followed by Setu Tu. Tu is coming up 25 now so might be seen as too old by the club to invest much time into but is a good player all the same
 
Whilst I haven't seen anything directly from the club, Moala Graham-Taufa was celebrating on Facebook some form of signing alongside Cappy about 2 months ago. My guess is he's next in line followed by Setu Tu. Tu is coming up 25 now so might be seen as too old by the club to invest much time into but is a good player all the same
Would love to see what happens with Sio Kali.
 
Starting to see players from teams whose seasons are over being let go by their clubs. Eels have said Ofahiki Ogden is free to leave, apparently roosters have said Naufahu Whyte and Terrell May can go. Apparently with Crichton off to union they might keep May with that money, think he’d be a good get but wants to stay near family I think.
Where was that said about Naufahu Whyte? Definitely an awesome talent and a local boy.
 
Let's say Whyte and May are targets, where are they playing in this current warriors squad?

I'm really interested in your thoughts on this in particular, because that would mean no room for Zyon Maiu’u no?

Whyte looks a talent but nothing more than what we already have, and he's not starting over anyone in the 17 as it stands now. The warriors have already committed to Sifakula as a prospect, and have an advancing halasima and Laban!

Club has finished top 4 this year so why can't they be successful next year with additions of CHT and RTS, and possibly upgrade Zyon Maiu’u and Laban under Ford, Niukore and Curran?
 
Let's say Whyte and May are targets, where are they playing in this current warriors squad?

I'm really interested in your thoughts on this in particular, because that would mean no room for Zyon Maiu’u no?

Whyte looks a talent but nothing more than what we already have, and he's not starting over anyone in the 17 as it stands now. The warriors have already committed to Sifakula as a prospect, and have an advancing halasima and Laban!

Club has finished top 4 this year so why can't they be successful next year with additions of CHT and RTS, and possibly upgrade Zyon Maiu’u and Laban under Ford, Niukore and Curran?

Naufahu Whyte is more a like for like replacement off the bench for Marata Niukore. Whyte has done a decent apprenticeship at the Roosters and will be ready for the NRL step up.

Zyon Maiu’u is almost certainly going to be in the match day 17 by the end of next season. He offers so much impact off the bench at prop and he will be a long time warrior. Warriors will be stronger for his development.

I don't think Laban has kicked on this year as much as he should of but he is learning his craft and was injured at times. Has great potential.
 
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