Warriors forwards backed to muscle up
At the end of last season, if you polled Warriors fans about which position they’d most like to see the club recruit someone in for 2020, the chances are they’d be calling for a big forward.
The Warriors had a couple of free spots on their roster after last season and one was taken up by hooker Wayde Egan.
The other one remains available and it’s likely to still be vacant come the start of the season on March 14.
So it’s no surprise that the Australian media, always quick to write off the Warriors and talk about them in cliches and outdated generalisations, have labelled them as no-hopers this season.
Fox Sports Australia rated their forward pack a D+, the joint worst alongside Wests Tigers. It also gave them an F for their offseason recruitment.
It’s true the only enforcer-type forward the Warriors have is Adam Blair, but that doesn’t mean the rest of them are lightweight pushovers.
Tohu Harris is as good as any forward in the NRL, Agnatius Paasi has a dynamic side to his game and Leeson Ah Mau is just the type of gnarly front-rower any team could do with.
Ah Mau will be embarking on his second season with the Warriors this year and has established himself as one of the most important players at the club.
The 30-year-old does exactly what you want from a prop, run hard up the middle and make tackle after tackle. While those on the other side of the Tasman are happy to rubbish the Warriors’ forward pack, Ah Mau stands by his team-mates.
‘‘Personally, I don’t read too much into it,’’ Ah Mau said of the criticism.
‘‘I back our forwards 100 per cent. When you go out on the field it’s only us out there and when I look around I definitely have faith and confidence in the boys next to me.’’
While there are older heads in the Warriors forward pack, there’s also plenty of youth with Isaiah Papali’i just 21, Jackson Frei 22, Jazz Tevaga 24, Bunty Afoa 23 and Josh Curren 20.
They’re likely to be the future for the Warriors over the next five years and they’ll all go into this season being more experienced and even though they’re not the biggest bunch of forwards you could ever come across, Ah Mau says they can make their presence felt in other areas of the game.
‘‘We’ve got to look for other ways and there are a lot of boys
‘‘I definitely have faith and confidence in the boys next to me.’’ Leeson Ah Mau
here with good ball skills and they can express themselves more and show that on the field,’’ Ah Mau said. ‘‘They’ll use the ball more and use their leg speed and things like that.’’
There will clearly be a licence to thrill for the Warriors this season, the players will be able to play with more freedom and that should lead to more exciting footy.
However, while the shackles may be off for some players, Ah Mau says he’ll stick to the core tasks a prop has to carry out.
‘‘It’s not really [changing] for myself,’’ he said.
‘‘I like to improve the little things though and as a forward pack I think we all need to step it up.
‘‘We’ll take into the games what we’ve been doing at training, which is to use the ball and for some of the boys to take their skills onto the field.’’
Ah Mau said there had been a change of focus over the preseason around how the team trained.
Craig Twentyman has come in as the head of performance, replacing Alex Corvo and, Ah Mau said, Twentyman had brought in his own ideas.
‘‘He’s been good,’’ Ah Mau said.
‘‘I guess everyone’s bought into his methods of training and we’re really excited to see how it goes during the year.
‘‘They’ve got different ways of training,’’ Ah Mau added when asked about the differences between Corvo and Twentyman.
‘‘I guess it’s high intensity now, more sprints and more ball in hand fitness.
‘‘With the coaching changes and the new things they’ve brought into the squad, it’s been refreshing for everyone here and it’s something new and exciting.’’