Barnett and Fonua-Blake in Dream Team front row

First they were honoured with their club’s top two player awards and now One New Zealand Warriors front rowers Mitchell Barnett and Addin Fonua-Blake have been installed as the NRL’s best props in the peer-voted 2024 Players’ Dream Team.

Barnett won the Simon Mannering Medal - the Warriors’ supreme player of the year award - at the club’s annual awards on September 8 while Fonua-Blake was named the players’ player of the year.

Today they’ve been revealed as the Dream Team front row combination heading off Canberra’s Joseph Tapine and Brisbane’s Payne Haas who were short-listed last week.

Barnett and Fonua-Blake were initially listed among 68 contenders (four from each club) for the prestigious Players’ Champion award to be announced on grand final day.

Fonua-Blake also made the Dream Team last year along with teammates Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Shaun Johnson.

In a season in which he made his New South Wales State of Origin debut, Barnett reached his NRL 150-game career milestone and also captained the One New Zealand Warriors in Tohu Harris’ injury-enforced absence.

Missing just one of the Warriors’ 24 games through Origin duty, he averaged 15 runs, 149 metres (career best) and 32 tackles a match. His defensive efficiency rate (93.93%), post contact metres (1409) and tackle breaks (46) were career bests as well while his 28 off loads equalled his best.

Fonua-Blake headed all players in the NRL for most post-contact metres with a career-best 1698 and ranked fourth for metres gained (4031), the most by any forward. His average metres gained per game (175) was also a best, just ahead of last year’s 171 per game, while he backed up his nine tries last year with eight this term to establish himself as the game’s pre-eminent try-scoring front rower.

He complemented his 175 metres a game with an average of 27 tackles (including only 27 missed tackles all season) plus a total of 84 tackle breaks (another career best) and 24 off loads.

Before last season Tohu Harris (2020) had been the only Warriors player to make the Dream Team since it was first introduced in 2017.

How the Players’ Dream Team voting works:

• Players are eligible for selection in a position they primarily played for the relevant season. This means a player cannot be eligible for selection in more than one position (excluding impact players, who can be eligible for an on-field position as well).
• Each player will be able to nominate a maximum of one player per position, out of the list of eligible players (but are not able to vote for players in their current team).
• The player/s with the most votes for each position will be selected in the Dream Team.
• Voting is open to all contracted NRL players.