Warriors warning for Hayne

Don’t be surprised if Jarryd Hayne gets a ‘welcome back to the NRL’ hit when he lines up against the Warriors today.

All eyes will be on the Titans signing when he makes his first appearance for his new club, in a crucial game against the Warriors.

But Warriors prop Jacob Lillyman says the former San Francisco 49ers running back shouldn’t expect an easy ride in his return to the sport and can expect some big hits coming his way.

‘‘Once you get out there, everyone’s equal,’’ Lillyman said. ’’It’s going to be tough for him and he’s underdone.

‘‘If we see him struggling a bit we might have to put a few up to him.’’

Being able to bring in a player of Hayne’s quality at this point of the season is a significant advantage for the Titans, but it’s also a positive for the code, not to lose one of its star players to rugby.

‘‘It’s good for the game but it’s a bit surprising that he’s ended up at the Titans,’’ Lillyman said. ’’We all assumed he’d end up back at the Eels and play the rest of his career there.’’

When the story broke that Hayne was signing for the Titans, there was some confusion as to whether he’d be able to play for them this season.

But as he wasn’t coming from another league club he didn’t need to have his registration done by the June 30 deadline.

However, it’s still questionable whether it’s fair to be able to call up a player like Hayne at this point of the season.

‘‘Whether it’s right or not, he’s allowed to because of the rules,’’ Lillyman said. ’’We’re not too worried, obviously he hasn’t played league for two years and he’s come back into a pretty high standard of league.

‘‘So it’s not going to be easy for him, but he’s just another player we’ll have to keep our eyes on.’’

The Titans have one competition point more than the Warriors and started the round in seventh place. The loser of this game will have a much tougher journey to finish the season in the top eight.

The Titans received plenty of praise after their 18-18 draw with the Sharks on Monday and they’re being talked up as one of the hottest teams in the competition.

However, the Warriors shouldn’t be written off. They haven’t lost a game in 80 minutes since May 21 and had a comfortable 27-18 victory over the Titans at Mt Smart Stadium just over a month ago. But despite all this, the Warriors are under the radar.

‘‘That’s probably how we like it,’’ said Lillyman. ’’At the start of the year we probably weren’t going under the radar for all of the wrong reasons.

‘‘But we’ve turned our season around and we’ve come a long way. We’re playing some good footy and we’re grinding it out. We’re going the full 80 minutes and all of those things you wouldn’t normally associate with a Warriors side.’'

As well as Konrad Hurrell, there will be another former Warriors player lining up for the Titans on Sunday, with prop Agnatius Paasi starting the game from the interchange. Paasi was let go at the end of the 2014 season and has been a revelation at the Titans this season.

‘‘I’m not alone here, I had a big rap on Agnatius,’’ Lillyman said.

‘‘He showed plenty of promise when he was here and it was pretty disappointing to see him leave to be honest.’' The makeup of the Black Caps pace attack over the past three years has been fairly consistent.

Tim Southee and Trent Boult lead the way, and one (sometimes two) of Doug Bracewell, Matt Henry or Neil Wagner round it out.

Look closely at the numbers, however, and you could make a case for handing the leadership over.

Since the Black Caps’ test against England in Dunedin in March 2013 – their first following the disastrous trip to South Africa that everyone involved says was a turning point that ushered in the current era – the bowling statistics of test pace bowlers make for interesting reading.

Looking only at those who have played 10 matches and bowled a minimum of 500 balls (roughly 80 overs), and taking in matches played up until the start of this week, there are 14 bowlers who have averaged 30 or less.

The list contains plenty of usual suspects – Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel; James Anderson and Stuart Broad; Ryan Harris, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are all there, and so are the Kiwi trio of Boult, Southee and Wagner.

It’s the order of the three Kiwis that intrigues. On averages (runs per wicket), Wagner leads the way with 28.03, followed by Boult with 28.23 and Southee with 30.00; on strike rates (balls per wicket), the order is the same, with the marks 50, 57.9 and 62.9 respectively.

Those values are so close that to use them to place one of the trio above the others would be silly, but it’s clear that, at the very least, they deserve to be spoken of as a trio, not a duo plus another.

Wagner’s haul of 8-103 against Zimbabwe last week has changed the picture somewhat – but not to the extent you might think. Before it, his average over the past three years was 29.79 and his strike rate was 52.5, so his numbers haven’t actually shifted that much.

Given that his output is on par with the duo who have been firmly established as the leaders of the New Zealand attack over the past three years, Wagner’s absence from the side for nine out of 10 tests from June 2014 to December 2015, now looks rather odd.

But having been sidelined for Doug Bracewell (who averages 50.39 over the past three years) and Matt Henry (101.5), he is now firmly back in the mix.

Since his return against Sri Lanka last December, Wagner has played four tests out of five, and is averaging 20.95, ahead of Southee (25.50), Boult (35.66), and Bracewell (46.71) in the same period. The Zimbabwe performance plays a big part, of course, but Southee and Boult had the chance to bowl against them too.

With his efforts against Zimbabwe, Wagner has surely secured his place for the two tests against South Africa, and he is likely to be a big contributor as the Black Caps make their way through a busy schedule in the coming months.

The great quick bowling combinations tend to sound like law firms - think Lillee and Marsh, Ambrose and Walsh, or McGrath and GIllespie.

If nothing else, it’s about time Southee and Boult started making way for a third name above the door.