NRL: Blake Green brings calm rugby league to free up Warriors' stars

Ben Hunt will be great for the Dragons, Cooper Cronk the same for the Roosters, and Mitchell Pearce has given Newcastle Knights fans reason to believe. New five-eighth Josh Reynolds will bring his patented froth-and-bother passion play to Wests Tigers, while Kieran Foran may approach the form of not many years ago, when he was among the best players in this National Rugby League.

Yet perhaps the most influential recruit could the new man at New Zealand Warriors, the unassuming, even journeyman, Blake Green – and not because he’s not adept or skilful or tough, because he most definitely has game. It’s because, as a calm, “guiding” ball-player and man-mover among a typically talented, if skittish group of circus performers, Green frees up the mercurial halfback Shaun Johnson to do what he does best: run free like the buffalo.

Rugby league’s halves usually feature a “controlling” halfback who complements a “running” five-eighth. Both men will have ability to pass, kick and run, but it’s normally the No7 who’s the quarterback-style player, while the No6 runs like the fullback he could be, as the liquid moves of Moses Mbye would attest.

The Warriors have turned the paradigm around. Against the Rabbitohs on Saturday afternoon, on a hard and fast surface at a crackerjack new stadium in Perth, we saw halfback “magic” Johnson run the Bunnies ragged. The man can really move. There’s shades of the great Greg “Brandy” Alexander about him: dummies, ball-play, a chip-and-chase; but mostly he runs and steps and scythes. When Magic runs, magic happens. And he tore them up.

He did so on a platform built by Green. Green did the “boring” stuff: kicking, passing, instructing, man-motivating; the general-ship required of the modern day ringmaster. It freed Johnson up to take on the Souths pigs and dazzle them with his flashy feet. Against Johnson they turned lumbering bovine.

Johnson ignited the Warriors’ first try with a towering bomb. He created their second when his speed made an overlap. A minute to half-time, he ran on the fifth and shredded ‘em, beat five Bunnies and passed in the tackle to David Fusitua who did plenty to score.

Yet while Green might be the grubber man, the link man, the pop-the-short-ball-to-the-giant-man man, he’s not without skill. His well-timed flat ball to Sam Lisone forced Adam Reynolds to commit to a decoy and see the Steeden flash in front of his eyes and “try” flash up on the board. He fed Roger Tuivasa-Sheck ball in space that kick-started the next try. He also switched the play back to Johnson who found Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, who in turn found the nuggetty Solomona Kata who crashed through many men.

Yet Green’s best, most instructive play came in a set in which he didn’t touch the ball. Up 30-10 with 25 minutes to play, the Warriors won a penalty, thirty metres out from the Rabbitohs’ line. Their big men verily snorted their excitement, so eager were they to get the ball and cart it up hard, step and offload, charge in, and continue the rampant, harum-scarum fun. They wanted to party.

Green then moved within earshot of these play-and hay-makers, raised a hand above his head, and mouthed words to the effect of: Calm the hell down. Let’s go through the motions. Let’s keep our heads. Let’s not throw anything out our arse. Let’s play out a good, solid, professional, hard-edged set of six.

And so it came to pass. Crash-crash-crash. On the fourth and fifth they threw it about, took on the line. But they’d set a platform – it was Green that built that, too. And so the Warriors rent asunder the blunder-Bunnies of South Sydney.

Sure, it’s only round one and Souths aren’t likely to set the world of league afire. And this is the Warriors. But there was plenty to like about their footy in this fixture.

The Warriors have always featured among the most talented players in the game. But they’ve not always been the best footballers – their heads have not always matched their hearts. Ball control and not-being-overly-penalised remain works in progress. A footballer’s maturity comes when he knows the time to die with the ball in the tackle, and the time to throw one-handed ball over his head.

Now they’ve recruited a man who’ll tell them. And he’ll set an example of super-solid, mistake-free, effective rugby league. In doing so, he’ll free up their superstars.