KEY POINTS:
Wingers Manu Vatuvei and Cooper Vuna were both juniors at the Otahuhu club when plucked from teenage grades to train with the Warriors development squad.
Four years later, the fortunes of the pair have taken vastly different twists and turns but the duo cross paths again at Mt
Smart Stadium tomorrow when Vatuvei takes the field in his 53rd start for the Warriors while Vuna runs out for just his tenth NRL game, his fifth at his new club, the Newcastle Knights.
Vatuvei already has 10 tests behind him and, at 21, has a heap in front of him if he maintains the blockbusting form that saw him selected in the first place.
He has played all bar one of 18 games this season - demotion to the Auckland Lions in premier league followed a disastrous performance by himself and by the team at Parramatta.
Vatuvei wants to forget the night he repeatedly dropped bombs and missed chip-kicks. He's worked hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"I practise ball-handling every day, before and after training. I get the boys to put balls up for me, to put the kicks in."
It was a big thing for him knowing he had the backing of his teammates and coach Ivan Cleary when things went bad, he said.
His confidence took a big knock, but it helped having long-term teammate Simon Mannering at centre. They had played in the Junior Kiwis and Kiwis together. Cleary had told him just to get involved early, to get the ball in his hands and make some early runs.
He's been looking for more ball throughout the game lately and was more comfortable roaming the field, taking dummy-half runs early in the tackle count. And he's been watching fullback Wade McKinnon's attack with interest, following how McKinnon makes his line breaks."I can't break it like him," he said.
McKinnon is all finesse, and Vatuvei is all power. But 25 tries in those 52 games is testament to Vatuvei's strike rate.
He has been mentored by former Kiwis captain Ruben Wiki and was the team's kava assistant to Wiki but realises he is now headed into a period where he will be regarded as a senior player.
Vuna, meanwhile, was cut from the Warriors in May as they sought to ensure they meet the salary cap for 2008. He was the club's youngest debutante when he took the field against Parramatta at the end of the 2004 season but did not play at all in 2005 and was not called on before being cut this season.
Newcastle coach Brian Smith was at the Eels in 2004 and remembers that debut.
"Daniel Anderson [then Warriors coach] had quite a big rap on him at the time and I kept an eye on him," said Smith.
"I've seen him play other games, watching out of curiosity. When he came on the market and we heard he was looking for a new challenge we picked him up. He's green but he's fitted in very well here, he's an extroverted sort of guy."
Vuna scored two tries against the Roosters last weekend in a 20-17 loss for the Knights, his fifth game since changing clubs, already doubling his NRL tally to 10.
So each winger scores in every second game, on average.
"I know his game," Vatuvei said. "He's going to play hard, he'll be playing in front of his family and friends. I just have to play my game."
Tale of two players
Cooper Vuna
* Born: July 5, 1987
* 182cm, 97kg wing
* NRL debut: Round 24 2004
* 5 games for the Warriors, 5 games for Newcastle, 10 tries
* NZ 'A' and NZ Residents representative
Manu Vatuvei
* Born March 4, 1986
* 189cm, 109kg wing
* Junior club: Otahuhu
* NRL debut: Round 11 2004
* 52 games for the Warriors, 25 tries.
* 10 tests 2005/2006; 5 tries