NRL: Numbers game for the Warriors

Lance Hohaia. Photo / Getty Images

The Warriors have crashed, bashed, kicked and bled their way to within sight of the NRL finals. Footy really is a numbers game.

28,695m
Near enough the distance from Central Auckland to Silverdale. That's how far the Warriors have collectively run during matches this season. Throw in the training kilometres and you could probably stretch that out to Whangarei. And back.

Lance Hohaia has chalked up the most metres (2274), while Jerome Ropati has been the most proficient, with 123.9 per match. Mataupo Poching chipped in with 58.

82 tries
Manu Vatuvei (pictured) has led the way with 17 tries in 16 games, including a hat-trick against the Knights in round 23. Three other Warriors have also notched hat-tricks. James Maloney (v Broncos Rd 3), Kevin Locke (v Roosters Rd 18) and Bill Tupou (v Sharks Rd 22). The fewest tries managed by the team in a match is one - in defeats by Sea Eagles, Storm and Tigers. Micheal Luck and Jesse Royal have played 38 games between them without troubling the scoreboard attendants.

3443 runs
Some of them have ended in glory, such as Kevin Locke's match-winning hat-trick streak against the Roosters in Christchurch. Plenty of others have ended in calamity. Some, like when Simon Mannering ripped up his hamstring while scoring against the Broncos in round three, were a bit of both.

Hohaia again tops the count with 250, while Ropati makes the most per game with 14.6.

100 stitches (approx) - Most of them in Micheal Luck
Not content with turning the weeping facial wound into an art form, Micheal Luck stepped things up a gear by attempting to amputate his leg with Anthony Watmough's boot last week.

Luck has also broken a hand and split the webbing between his fingers.

Other injuries suffered in the pursuit of glory include broken thumb (Brett Seymour), dislocated kneecap (Sam Rapira), broken jaw (Brent Tate, Patrick Ah Van), ruptured ACL (Isaac John) and being snapped in half on a goal post (Kevin Locke).

138 penalties conceded
Somehow it seems like more.

Giving away penalties has certainly been an area of strength this season, with five-eighth James Maloney leading the NRL, with 26. Maloney is so far ahead of the game he even managed to get penalised for being in front of the kicker when he was in fact the kicker.

That takes some doing. Manly's Anthony Watmough is the next worse offender with 23, while Ben Matulino is the Warriors' next best with nine.

2 40/20 kicks
Game changing 40/20 kicks are as rare as Eric Watson sightings these days - unless Matt Rogers is kicking them.

That's not entirely fair, with James Maloney and Brett Seymour nailing one each.

Cooper Cronk and Terry Campese lead the comp with four.

6984 tackles
Four a minute. Just under 320 per match, for a total just shy of 7000.

That's how many tackles it has taken the Warriors to get within sight of the NRL finals.

As he always does, Micheal Luck has led the way with 792.

Newcomer Alehana Mara has made the least with just seven in 22 minutes of game time.

With Mara shaping as the hooker of the future, that will certainly change. The opposing player has got away 770 times, with 103 of those misses coming from James Maloney.

247 errors
Sometimes things don't go quite right.

Actually, make that lots of times - about 12 times a match.

The Beast is the best at being the worst, as it turns out, with 27 howlers.

Before having his season ended with a knee injury, Isaac John was the team's steadiest hand, with just one fumble in five matches.

27 players
Of the top-ranked 25 players at the club that count towards the salary cap, Ben Matulino and Aaron Heremaia have played every game this season.

At the other end of the spectrum, Shaun Johnson and Elijah Taylor haven't featured at all.

Players on the second-tier cap to push into the top grade are Sione Lousi, Bill Tupou, Mataupu Poching and Alehana Mara.

Fullback Wade McKinnon left the club mid-season to join the Tigers.

1
The only number that really matters for the Warriors - the number of wins they now need to make the NRL playoffs.