No he actually dropped him. He replaced him with Crockett who promptly got himself sent off the next week lol
Ah yeah that is right he was out for a game and game back stronger.
Kosi (like Maumalo to an extent) is nominally a "big winger" but I'm yet to see compelling evidence that he is a more powerful carrier of the football than the next guy. Montoya and DWZ are arguably both better at getting on the front foot than Kosi. I will say that Kosi's finishing has been competent so far in his career. He has proven to be a somewhat cannier footballer than I expected but I don't really see an explosive athlete likely to break the line.
Comparisons with my posting namesake inevitably come up when the next "big winger" comes along but Manu was really a next level athlete imo. Maumalo/Kosi were never likely to routinely run over the top of blokes like Manu did.
Vailea has already shown on several occasions, with limited opportunities, the ability to bust the line and score tries out of nowhere with footwork/speed/strength. He can break the line and then has the speed to go the length. That's a rare quality, more so with our workmanlike backline. But yeah, I have also been frustrated by some of his negative tendencies and I understand you don't just pick a guy based on the best-case scenario while ignoring his weaknesses.
Don't actually disagree with much if any of this.
Manu was a once in a generation like Lomu. He is an outlier.
When I say Kosi is a big winger type I am primarily looking at his finishing style, he is not easy to stop in the corner.
I remember SK bagging Ken after a loss for being stopped by the smallest man on the feild in a corner scenario.
Agreed Kosi is not beastmode on kick returns, but he is big enough, with a skilled Center, to create edge issues for the opposition in their redzone.
One on one on the Try line Kosi knows how to finish.
Vailea being omitted from the fg squad for less gifted attacking centers should tell us all we need to know about Webster. That one selection decision makes it very clear what Webster is about.
Vailea is a potential star attacking footballer right? and everyone with a TV can see that, so you really have to ask why he is not playing.
I don't blame Webster, cripes the guy has a plan and you can follow it, and he has us in second equal.
When I see the 2023 Warriors I see a different game plan. I see a very clear game plan, and Webster and the players keep giving us the same message every week in pressers.
If we had a dollar for every time a player parrots Webster and says resilience we would be richer than an SK payout on the process.
They always talk about their try line defence and their resilience this year, it is the new mantra.
Putting it crudely Webster has gone for the tiny forward pack to speed us up. And he has an even smaller bench to really turbo charge our output after twenty minutes.
We basically hang on with our Vanilla starters and then run the opposition to death with our bench and they run out of gas.
While they are being exhausted the strangle comes on...and it is really hard to score against the Warriors in the final quarter and hard to keep them out, and not because we have strike players, because the opposition are stuffed and Walker is shifting the ball all the time with SJ and we are getting on the outside or throwing dummys and watchign the tired defence over read and let SJ or whoever slide right down the middle.
The risk with a small pack...(I need to make it clear I ain't telling anyone how to suck eggs by stating the obvious, just fleshing out a rant) is that we get run over the top of and that creates issues on our edges folding in...and have lost games this way....in which case.....it is critical for this small pack strategy to work, that all thirteen are going to do the fundamentals better than ever before.
For example. when we switch on the wall, the kick chase is great and following a deliberate Johnson Bomb to trap the back three in the corners. And from there we show up with a wall with line speed and the strangle comes on.
I typed all of that when what I was trying to say really, is that it is all on Vailea...no high defensive output no play, or to put it another way, X factor alone will not be enough to alter the coaches game plan.
In all of our victories we played like one of the hardest defensive outfits in the NRL from sixty minutes onward...which is the complete opposite of the Warriors 'type' and has caught a lot of opposition players and coaches out....because they come with a script that says stay in touch till the seventieth minute and the Warriors collapse. Instead we have been fitter, more fresh, playing at a higher tempo and pouring it on in defence in all of our victories we have been the team coming home with a late surge...that is what tiny forwards and every man is a tacklebot is about.,
I find it interesting that despite Currans Rep for work rate he has struggled to get back in and last game the Cows scored off a Jersey grab by him.
That aside, I suspect the reason Curran is struggling to crack FG is the new plan for forward inter passing.....every forward Webster picks can and does shift a ball two wide of the ruck.
Curran like Vailea is a player with a lot of talent, to me it makes it even more obvious that talent no longer rules the roost, ability to deliver the game plan is the new Black...especially given Curran is a try scorer and seemingly lower in the pecking order than some one like Sirronen.
Lastly, Montoyas beastmode tackle busting run and offload to Kosi pretty much put the Vailea option in perspective, can we say Vailea has ripped a game open from nothing and finished with an assist like that while being a strong defender?
