Confirmed Line-up: No changes for clash against Souths
No further changes have been made to the One New Zealand Warriors’ line-up for tonight’s 18th-round NRL encounter with the South Sydney Rabbitohs at Go Media Stadium Mt Smart (8.00pm kick-off; game day sponsor: One New Zealand).
Last night Mitchell Barnett, returning from a one-match suspension, was moved off the bench to take Josh Curran’s place in the second row with hooker Freddy Lussick added to the interchange alongside Dylan Walker, for South Sydney back rower Bayley Sironen and Tom Ale.
Centre Brayden Wiliame is 18th man after playing for the club’s New South Wales Cup side in tonight’s curtain raiser.
The 29-year-old Barnett is making his third appearance since his comeback from the neck injury that ruled him out for 10 games following the third-round win over North Queensland.
Of Barnett’s five matches so far the Warriors have won four times, the last two against the Dolphins, when he made 147 metres and 28 tackles, and the Raiders (176 metres and 21 tackles).
His inclusion is offset by the loss of Kiwi second rower Marata Niukore and Curran, Niukore out for three matches after taking an early guilty plea to a grade two careless high tackle charge he landed following the club’s 48-18 victory over St George Illawarra on Friday night.
The clash against the Rabbitohs marks the start of a nine-game run-in to the end of the regular season which sees the One New Zealand Warriors play six matches on home soil (one an ‘away’ game against Wests Tigers in Hamilton) with four of the five at Go Media Stadium all being played on a Friday night.
After winning three consecutive matches earlier in the season against North Queensland, Canterbury Bankstown and Cronulla Sutherland, the Warriors have the chance to go one better on Friday night coming off victories over the Dolphins, Canberra and St George Illawarra, matches in which they have totalled 114 points while conceding just 40.
They sit fifth on the ladder on 22 points with a 9-6 record, just two points off the top three on 24 points but only two clear of the teams ranked seventh, eighth and ninth. One of those teams is South Sydney which has uncharacteristically lost four of its last five games, including a 6-31 home defeat by North Queensland on Sunday.
It contrasts starkly with the Rabbitohs’ record against the One New Zealand Warriors over the last 10 years. In that time South Sydney has built a 13-1 record with the only exception being the Warriors’ 32-20 win in Perth in the first round of the 2018 season.
The last time the One New Zealand Warriors beat Souths at Go Media Stadium was in 2012 when they surged to a 44-22 win.
