Kata, Vatuvei to miss season finale

The Warriors will be without Solomone Kata and Manu Vatuvei for their final game of the 2016 season, against the Eels on Sunday.

Kata has accepted a guilty plea for a grade one dangerous throw charge on Jordan Rankin in last weekend’s 36-24 loss to Wests Tigers at Mt Smart Stadium, while Vatuvei is out with a sternum injury.

The absence of both players has led to Warriors coach Andrew McFadden making a backline reshuffle with David Fusitu’a moving from fullback to his favoured position of centre.

Tuimoala Lolohea, who McFadden has admitted has struggled at fullback this season, makes a return to the No 1 jersey and on the wings will be Ken Maumalo, back from injury and Jonathan Wright, promoted from reserve grade.

‘‘We’ve been forced to shuffle our backline resources around through losing Manu and Sol,’’ confirmed McFadden.

‘‘Manu managed to get through the match against the Tigers (making 147 metres from 14 runs) but was in a fair bit of pain and Sol has to sit this one out.

‘‘There was plenty of disappointment over what happened against the Tigers – and there still is – but we have to get back up to finish the season as well as we possibly can to give us something to build on for next year.

‘‘The Eels are in the same position as us. They’ve been playing well most of the season and had another good result against the Dragons last night (Monday). We know we’ll be in for a tough contest.’’

The rest of the team for a game that now has little consequence remains unchanged.

A five-man bench has been named with last week’s interchange players Sam Lisone, Ben Matulino and rookie Ata Hingano joined by two other 2016 newcomers Bunty Afoa and Nathaniel Roache. James Gavet has dropped out of the 17.

While neither team can make the finals, there will certainly be a desire from both teams to pick up a win.

The Warriors have been dreadful at the end of seasons for the past four years and they’ll want to prove that they can win games at this time of the year.

They could also be playing for McFadden’s future as head coach.

The club won’t be making any announcements about what will happen next year until after an end-of-season review is completed, but if the Warriors were to record a good win over an underrated Eels side, that could help McFadden remain at the helm.