Team List Team List Tuesday (2023 Finals Week 3) - Broncos vs Warriors

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More GOAT content for your soul... (Assume this interview was conducted telepathically since I have never heard the GOAT speak)

Berry in bloom as Farnworth showdown awaits​

With a healthy body and a consistent voice coming from the coaching box in 2023, Rocco Berry is beginning to show his true ability in the NRL arena.

Since making his first-grade debut two years ago, Berry has worked under three different head coaches at the Warriors and had to overcome a range of injuries which have held him back.

As a convert from rugby union who only switched codes at the end of 2018, he was also among those most impacted by the club's inability to field their own reserve-grade side during the pandemic.

It's meant this season has been his first opportunity to play more than four NRL games in succession and since Round 11 he's been coach Andrew Webster's first-choice right centre.

After getting the better of Origin star Bradman Best in their Finals Week Two clash – which included scoring a try and nailing the majority of his defensive assignments against the lethal left-side of the Knights – the 22-year-old said he’s gaining confidence every week from playing alongside veteran edge partners Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Shaun Johnson and Marata Niukore.

“It’s just been good to play consistent footy, this is the most games I have played in a row by far and that plays a big part in form,” Berry told NRL.com.

You build combos each week when you can play with the same players and that’s been huge. Each week I’m getting more reps and it builds confidence.

“Playing outside of Shaun and Marata has really allowed me to just do my job, which is to focus on kick chase and trying to give Dal the ball early and in good positions.”

While his impressive effort to score in the 40-10 win over the Knights last Saturday was just his third try in 15 games this year, Berry has been in the thick of the attack as one of the main providers for prolific wing Watene-Zelezniak, who got over for his 22nd four-pointer of the season last week.

But it’s on the defensive side that he’s been most impressive to date in 2023 and he will need to be at his very best again if he is to contain powerhouse Bronco Herbie Farnworth at Suncorp Stadium.

Farnworth averages five tackle busts per game this year and has scored 13 tries in 24 appearances.

“He’s a great player, a dangerous player who has really good carries,” Berry said of his opposite number this week.

“When we played them earlier in the year he was a handful, so I am going to have to prepare well and make sure I am on my game.

“But we think if we stay in our system our defence works against all attack.

“I just can’t take a backwards step or be having any lapses in concentration.”

The Warriors have a good recent record against the Broncos, with wins in two of their last four meetings, but have tasted victory at Suncorp Stadium just once in their past four visits.
Click to expand...

I can barely function at the moment, I seriously can't go longer than 5 minutes without thinking of the game.
 

NZWarriors.com

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Phil Gould picked it up. He named Tohu as the player of the round. Why? Cause he created the pocket SJ could operate in without being physically challenged on attack. Dylan Walker offers the same space. The challenge for the Broncos is to to get to SJ. but to do that they need a smart agile hooker or lock with balance. Webby has set the trap.
 
I think the Warriors are still very underrated and the Broncos arrogance could cost them this game. They think we're an easy win. No game in the NRL is an easy win. We finished 4th and deservedly so with the 3rd best defensive effort in the comp. Addin-Fonua Blake will own the middle of the park. The ever-reliable CNK taking the hard runs to keep the forwards fresh for a mammoth defensive effort. Tohu looked much better/fresher against the Knights as well especially with that line break. TMM and Tevaga have built a bit of match fitness over the last couple weeks.

I don't even consider it an ambush. We are a top 4 team and our players are putting in for each other. We looked like a different team against the Knights with everything clicking and most of our first choice squad being back together in the 17. We thrashed the Knights 40-10 in an elimination final that looked easy. We deserve to be here. The boys believe and we can and will win this.

Up the Wahs!!!
 
Been going over the replay of last week and just to add context and dispel some of the mythology about our bench.

The truth behind when things started to look bad:

Up until the 15 minute mark the Warriors won on every metric that wins games. At the 15 minute mark the Knights pack swing the momentum.

The Knights are completely dominant in the territory battle (I measure this by the half way line, simple mathematics) the team crossing the halfway line most is the team that is winning the arm wrestle.

The Knights surge lasted for 13 minutes, which is interesting because Barnett and AFB were our props for the 13 minutes of Knights dominance.

This is where the Myth of our bench use unfairly drags Jazz into the sense that he is part of the bench rotation problem.

Part of the problem is that fans see two bench players come on at that losing point of the battle (Walker and Curran come on) and they blur their sense of what role Jazz is having in the momentum swing away from us (this is fact, not one poster here has gone back and watched the game and pointed out that when our team started losing the battle severely Jazz was not even on the field see below for what I mean by losing severely).

During this period the Knights cross our half way at will, they completely reverse the complexion of the game, they go into our half of the field on all 8 of their possessions.

At the same danger period for the Warriors (13 minutes of losing up front) the Warriors do not cross the halfway mark once in 8 sets.

Jazz enters after this bad spell at around the 27-28 minute mark for the Warriors and for the first time the Knights fail to cross the halfway mark and the Warriors enjoy their first possession in the Knights territory.

The Warriors almost score twice with Jazz on the feild through Egan and CNK. Jazz is the lead hole runner on both those plays and is quietly getting quick play the balls with decent meters.

Newcastle get possession back and for the second time in a row they fail to cross the half way, Jazz makes critical dominant tackles in that phase with line speed.
So the Knights momentum has been stopped and Jazz is the one player change that gets us back into the arm wrestle, the grind.

Incidental stuff but I need to tell the full story here to have legitimacy - Newy get one set in our half off an error. Their next full set they only make it to one meter inside our half.

The Knights get one more good set which puts them five meters in our half, so to recap:

13 minutes with AFB and Barnett: Knights totally momentum swing and go inside our turf 8 times in a row, we see no ball in their half.

Jazz comes on and we stop the bleeding, the Warriors get back inside their half, and the Knights are kept behind the half way mark for all but two sets where they barely crossed it.

After half time the momentum swings back to the Knights after some rubbish calls by the Reff they get their second and last Try.

Ergo, scoreboard stats one try when Jazz is out, one try when Jazz is in. That was the forward pass no try which should have seen the Miles Davis Jazz on a no try while I am on performance.

The Knights look like they are back in it with interest as they cross our half with ease (giving fans that sinking feeling our bench is just not good enough) but the Warriors hit back through Dylan Walkers Try and the game is now ours to lose.

You know the reason Jazz is always the first to congratulate Walker on every try? Because Jazz is pushing up hard in support play on all those trys and if you know Dylan, Jazz is his wing man, he loves him, Jazz makes Walkers game easier, a happy Dylan Walker is a winning Dylan Walker.

After that moment Jazz is subbed out and the Warriors go on a rampage and thrash the Knights on every metric and Jazz is watching from the bench after helping his team win the arm wrestle that the fans are blaming him for and want Bunty to come on and do apparently better than what Jazz did in that final.

Going out on a limb here but to me Tevanga is one of our top forwards and absolutely critical to our chances of winning this competition and one of our most misunderstood players.
 
Last edited:
sup42 said:
Been going over the replay of last week and just to add context and dispel some of the mythology about our bench.

The truth behind when things started to look bad:

Up until the 15 minute mark the Warriors won on every metric that wins games. At the 15 minute mark the Knights pack swing the momentum.

The Knights are completely dominant in the territory battle (I measure this by the half way line, simple mathematics) the team crossing the halfway line most is the team that is winning the arm wrestle.

The Knights surge lasted for 13 minutes, which is interesting because Barnett and AFB were our props for the 13 minutes of Knights dominance.

This is where the Myth of our bench use unfairly drags Jazz into the sense that he is part of the bench rotation problem.

Part of the problem is that fans see two bench players come in at that losing point of the battle (Walker and Curran come on) and they blur their sense of what role Jazz is having in the momentum swing away from us (this is fact, not one poster here has gone back and watched the game and pointed out that when our team started losing the battle severely Jazz was not even on the field see below for what I mean by losing severely).

During this period the Knights cross our half way at will, they completely reverse the complexion of the game, they go into our half of the field on all 8 of their possessions.

At the same danger period for the Warriors (13 minutes of losing up front) the Warriors do not cross the halfway mark once in 8 sets.

Jazz enters after this bad spell at around the 27-28 minute mark with the Warriors and for the first time the Knights fail to cross the halfway mark and the Warriors enjoy their first possession in the Knights territory.

The Warriors almost score twice with Jazz on the feild through Egan and CNK. Jazz is the lead hole runner on both those plays and is quietly getting quick play the balls with decent meters.

Newcastle get possession back and for the second time in a row they fail to cross the half way, Jazz makes critical dominant tackles in that phase with line speed.
So the Knights momentum has been stopped and Jazz is the one player change that gets us back into the arm wrestle, the grind.

Incidental stuff but I need to tell the full story here to have legitimacy - Newy get one set in our half off an error. Their next full set they only make it to one meter inside our half.

The Knights get one more good set which puts them five meters in our half, so to recap:

13 minutes with AFB and Barnett: Knights totally momentum swing and go inside our turf 8 times in a row, we see no ball in their half.

Jazz comes on and we stop the bleeding, the Warriors get back inside their half, and the Knights are kept behind the half way mark for all but two sets where they barely crossed it.

After half time the momentum swings back to the Knights after some rubbish calls by the Reff they get their second and last Try.

Ergo, scoreboard stats one try when Jazz is out, one try when Jazz is in. That was the forward pass no try which should have seen the Miles Davis Jazz on a no try while I am on performance.

The Knights look like they are back in it with interest as they cross our half with ease (giving fans that sinking feeling our bench is just not good enough) but the Warriors hit back through Dylan Walkers Try and the game is now ours to lose.

You know the reason Jazz is always the first to congratulate Walker on every try? Because Jazz is pushing up hard in support play on all those trys and if you know Dylan, Jazz is his wing man, he loves him, Jazz makes Walkers game easier, a happy Dylan Walker is a winning Dylan Walker.

After that moment Jazz is subbed out and the Warriors go on a rampage and thrash the Knights on every metric and Jazz is watching from the bench after helping his team win the arm wrestle that the fans are blaming him for and want Bunty to come on and do apparently better than what Jazz did in that final.

Going out on a limb here but to me Tevanga is one of our top forwards and absolutely critical to our chances of winning this competition and one of our most misunderstood players.
Click to expand...
I see the analysis differently.

In the first 20 minutes they had very little ball...that always tends to balance out...and it did.
That was when they made gains into our half, helped by some shoddy refereeing.

However also in that whole time they were winning the ruck distance by quite a bit, which I thought might come back to bite us....but it didn't.

As the game went on and the team reverted to arm wrestle mode we eroded their advantage in set distance and by the end of the game were well ahead.

IMO one of their most impressive forward performances of the season, and the Broncos would have been watching.

This team is no fluke ladies and jellybeans...and Webster sems to plan everything...quite a scary fecker to be honest.
 
Tookey 2.0 said:
Getting suuuuper ahead of my self (just saw something on Instagram), but if we win the gf would SJ retire?

Would be pretty poetic for him to take the team to the big dance in his first, and last season's, capping it off with a win, and a Daly M.

I can't imagine him waking up wanting to do it all over again nek year if that was the case
Click to expand...
If he did retire after winning us the trophy I cannot see how anyone could begrudge him that.
 
Fonzie said:
www.nytimes.com

As a National Favorite Fumbles, New Zealand Falls for Another Rugby Team (Published 2023)

An improbable run by the New Zealand Warriors has offered some excitement to counter the All Blacks’ recent misfortune.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...
How good! And the NY Times of all rags! When I was in college in the US they would put out the local Houston Chronicle and NY Times on the tables in the dining room and I remember the 1 time there was an article about the All Blacks but never once did I see any mention of rugby league, let along one about the mighty One NZ Warriors. That's epic. Well done

For those that cant get past the paywall...

As a National Favorite Fumbles, New Zealand Falls for Another Rugby Team​

An improbable run by the New Zealand Warriors has offered some excitement to counter the All Blacks’ recent misfortune.

Two rugby players run behind one player who is holding the ball.

Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad of the New Zealand Warriors scoring a try during a rugby match in Auckland on Saturday.Credit...Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

Two rugby players run behind one player who is holding the ball.

By Pete McKenzie
Reporting from Wellington, New Zealand
Sept. 20, 2023Updated 1:16 a.m. ET
Sign up for The Interpreter newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Original analysis on the week’s biggest global stories, from columnist Amanda Taub. Get it with a Times subscription.
The New Zealand fan was despondent. He had just witnessed history in Paris, where rugby’s greatest team, the All Blacks of New Zealand, had suffered its first loss in the group stages of the World Cup. But when asked if he had a message for his compatriots back home, he looked into the TV camera, grinned and cheered: “Up the Wahs.”
That would be a reference to the New Zealand Warriors, long a footnote in this rugby-mad nation’s sporting lore. But in recent weeks, as the All Blacks, the once-mighty national team, have struggled, New Zealanders have found inspiration in the Warriors, a professional outfit.
A rare streak of victories has brought the Warriors within reach of their first title in Australia’s National Rugby League, where they are the only overseas team. Their ascendance stands in stark contrast to the recent fortunes of the All Blacks.



“The All Blacks are performing at a World Cup, and everyone at home is wearing Warriors jerseys,” said Uzair Kalim, a longtime Warriors fan who lives in Auckland. “It’s amazing to see.”

Image
Three people in a crowd watching a sporting match hold up three signs that, together, read “up the Wahs.”

Warrior fans raise “up the Wahs” banners.Credit...Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

Three people in a crowd watching a sporting match hold up three signs that, together, read “up the Wahs.”

As Warrior mania has gripped New Zealand, home games at their 25,000-seat stadium in Auckland have consistently sold out. Even casual fans are emblazoning themselves with the team’s tiki mascot, a team dance has gone viral on TikTok, a local brewery has produced and sold an unauthorized tribute beer, and the “up the Wahs” cheer has become a part of everyday conversations, even proclaimed in Parliament by the speaker.
Although both teams technically play rugby, in many ways, they could not be more different. The Warriors play rugby league, a variant of the game that is effectively a different sport than the rugby union played by the All Blacks. They have a much smaller profile, whereas the All Blacks play on an international stage.

The All Blacks sport a monochrome look, while the Warriors wear an eclectic blue kit striped with red, white and green. And the All Blacks perform their famous, ceremonial haka before each match, while the Warriors typically have fans perform it only before big games.

Image
A line of rugby players in black walk between two rows of players in white applauding them.

The All Blacks after losing to France in a group stage match at the World Cup in Paris this month.Credit...Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A line of rugby players in black walk between two rows of players in white applauding them.




In their three-decade existence, the Warriors have not won a single league title. The All Blacks are one of the most successful teams in sports history, with a win record of nearly 80 percent.
But to some fans, the Warriors’ underdog status is the point.
“They’ve endured some harrowing lows, but they have a hold on you,” said Will Evans, the co-host of a fan podcast called “This Warriors Life,” who cried with happiness as the team took to the field at its most recent game. “There’s a sense that you want to be there for the success that seems so tantalizingly close.”
The Warriors have reached the championship game twice before — in 2011 and 2002. They ended last season almost at the bottom of the ladder. The new season brought with it a new coach, Andrew Webster, who came with limited experience in the job. But with his guidance, the skill of key players like captain Tohu Harris, and no small amount of luck, the Warriors now find themselves in the league’s semifinals this weekend.
“It’s one of the great turnarounds,” Mr. Evans said. “It was so amazing that they were there, with the stadium packed out and with that sense of unity. It was euphoric.”
The team has even become a talking point, however small, in national politics ahead of next month’s election. At a recent news conference, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins was quizzed over his preferred chant — he chose “up the Wahs” over the less popular “let’s gone Warriors” — and agreed to appear in a video with his main political competitor to nudge the team on.
Several rugby players hug and cheer each other.

Warrior players celebrating a score during a match on Saturday.Credit...Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

Several rugby players hug and cheer each other.

For many longtime Warriors fans, the sudden support has been disorientating, but gratifying. “Everyone loves an underdog, and the Warriors are a perpetual underdog,” Mr. Kalim said. “I’ve got no problem with it. Welcome to the bandwagon!”
While many fair weather fans and recent converts seem to take for granted that the team will succeed in its quest for its first league title, some veteran supporters have found the cynicism bred by years of losses harder to shake.
“We’re winning, but we don’t trust it,” said “Fonzie,” Mr. Evans’s anonymous co-host. “It always feels like something is going to go wrong and we’ll fall off the wagon.”
Encouraged by the wave of enthusiasm, however, he couldn’t help but be hopeful. “The analyst in me says we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but all your prior assumptions go out the window on the day.”
As Mr. Kalim put it: “Anything’s possible, right?”
 
WahsaurusRex said:
Broncos have 2 players that have played in Prelims before, we have 6.

Pretty simple to see what that means...

The Brisbane Broncos simply don't get finals footy, but we do 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...

To expand on this..

Average Age: 27.1
Average Age: 24.4

Average Games: 120.6
Average Games: 77.4

Finals Games Played: 97
Finals Games Played: 53

Prelim Experience Players: 8 (Missed Sironen and DWZ last time)
Prelim Experience Players: 2

Regardless of how many throbbers they have, the Broncos are still a very young, and inexperienced team.

The Broncos will absolutely win a premiership in the near future, but tomorrow is just a learning opportunity for them ;)

🎶We got the age, We got the games, We got the finals experience that's all we f**k'n need, stand up and shout, say it to the end, Brissy don't get finals footy 100% 🎶 Cheeeeeeeeeehoooooooooooo
 
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