I've been a fan of Sione since he was 14.
He is the youngest of 4 brothers who all came through all the junior grades at the Knights to play firstgrade.
They are 4 of the 7 children of a single mother who struggled to raise them.
There are many stories of how other kids spent the money they got to play juniors on luxuries, but the Mata'utia boys spent it all on food for the family, and how their first manager had to buy them boots.
By the time Sione came through his 3 older brothers were all training with senior sides and playing at under 20s level or above, so at 14 years old Sione was training with his brothers and was seen as the best player of his age in Australia. He captained the Australian under 16s side.
He did his first firstgrade pre season at 16/17 and Wayne Bennett described him as a future club captain and said he would play him in firstgrade if he could (not able to play till he turned 18).
He made his firstgrade debut as a fullback the week after he turned 18 and scored 7 tries in his first 5 games.
In his time at the Knights he has played every position on the field except halfback and hooker.
Woolf was the assistant coach at the Knights who turned him from a centre to a second row forward, and since then he has played some lock and prop during games.
He hasn't really settled into the forwards in the last few years and the club has signed Tyson Frizell for next year, so it's hard to see Sione getting a spot in the 17 at the Knights.
I think he'd be better off going back to centre and losing a bit of the size he's built up since training for the forwards, but clearly Woolf sees him as a second row.
When he made the Australian side at 18 it came after he played in the PMs XIII against PNG and amazed everyone in the Australian setup with how hard he trained. He still trains at a level that very few can match and has been the Knights best trainer for years.
He's bulked up and slowed down.
He's still faster than most forwards and he is one of the strongest tacklers going around, but it's hard to see where his future is.
Nathan Brown did him no favours by using him as Mr Fix it and putting him in different positions nearly every week. Sione is his own worst enemy by saying yes to anything asked of him too. He'd literally play wing one week and be coming off the bench to play 5/8 and then a bit of middle forward the next week. He gave every position his best shot, but never settled into a routine. Hopefully Woolf will put him in one position and let him develop the skills for that position over time.
Whichever way you want to spin it he looks a real talent who needs to be used in his most effective position.
Learned comment from The Don
Sounds more like Vinnie Anderson than Sia Soliola.
I don't know what his best position for you will be.
He was a decent second row for us for the last 2 seasons, but he never set the world on fire. Before that he was mostly a centre and a pretty good one.
If he trained as an outside back and dropped 5 to 10kgs, he'd still be a lot better than Kevin Naiqama (the only Knights player I'm familiar with in your team). As a forward he wouldn't be as good as Zeb Taia when we had him, but that was a long time ago and I'd imagine he'd be better than Zeb now, albeit a very different style of player.
Normally when a centre moves to 2nd row, it's because he has lost that yard of pace to be effective when running wide. How fast is he? I believe you 100% about him being better than Naiqama. I don't rate Naiqama, he is an ok runner with the ball, but that's it. Whenever I see him with the ball in hand I never think, oh wow something special could happen here.