Focused Warriors close down emotion
CAPTAIN Roger TuivasaSheck won’t play the emotion card in the minutes leading up to the Warriors’ NRL return against St George Illawarra.
Such sentiment, he says, yesterday’s news.
Six weeks in strict Auckland lockdown and four weeks of insular preparation in Australia will end for the competition nomads when they run on to Central Coast Stadium today.
Tuivasa-Sheck, one of the NRL’s premier players, reckons the sacrifice of leaving families at home won’t be mentioned in the dressing sheds. It will be a more pragmatic message.
“We’ll tap into all the hard work that we’ve put in so far,” he said. “Emotions, we’ve all left that behind and we’re here to do a job now.”
There’s little room for either team to ease into form. After finishing 2019 in the bottom four, both clubs lodged 0-2 records before the COVID-19 shutdown in March.
Since then, the demands placed on the Warriors has earned them praise and empathy in Australia, and a keen following in New Zealand.
A team often maligned by Kiwi sport fans because of their modest history of results, they can expect a substantial television audience back home.
While Tuivasa-Sheck does not believe his players will feel pressured by their status as the nation’s first sporting figures to return to action, Dragons coach Paul McGregor believes they’ll find it hard to ignore sentimentality.
“We’ve spoken about it, you’ll see a spike of emotion for sure,” McGregor said.
“Everyone is sacrificing some way – the Warriors a bit more than others because they’ve moved away from home, but once you cross the white stripe you expect to win and you’re going out there to do that.”