Warriors coach confirms key positional switch
AUCKLAND: Warriors captain Roger TuivasaSheck is likely to play out of position for the rest of the season to accommodate the talents of young gun Reece Walsh.
Despite being one of the best fullbacks in the NRL, TuivasaSheck will shift when Walsh is on the field to allow the 18yearold to play at the back.
That happened in Sunday’s 3418 loss to the Eels, as TuivasaSheck moved to the right wing when Rocco Berry left the field with a head knock. Walsh played the final 46 minutes in the second line.
It was a handy option at Suncorp Stadium, but coach Nathan Brown suggested it could be a permanent arrangement.
‘‘That’s our plan. Just put him in [at fullback],’’ Brown said of Walsh.
‘‘Roger is more than happy to move. He’s happy to go and play anywhere, which is great from our point of view when your captain, your highestpaid and most prolific player says, ‘I’ll play wherever you need me to play’. [On Sunday] it came through a head knock, but yeah, that’s the plan.’’
It is a conundrum for Brown, finding a way to fit Walsh and TuivasaSheck into the spine, without sacrificing one of his regular halves.
Against the Cowboys, Walsh started at five eighth — with Chanel HarrisTavita still out with injury — while last week Kodi Nikorima was moved to hooker when Walsh entered the fray.
Using players out of position is never ideal, but Brown denies it is a dilemma.
‘‘It’s not a real headache because Roger wants the club to do well and he knows Reece plays a big part in that future,’’ Brown said.
‘‘But we want to win the games now as well so it’s probably a balancing act, but Roger is really comfortable to move there.
‘‘I didn’t ask Roger to move. He said ‘just move me’ so because of Roger’s attitude it makes it quite easy to do. Whereas if Roger wasn’t that way inclined it would probably make it a little difficult.’’
Walsh justified his inclusion with another impressive cameo on Sunday. He scored a brilliant solo try from close range, had three line breaks, a line break assist and 15 runs for 162m.
It was not perfect but whenever he was around the ball things seemed to happen.
Conversely, TuivasaSheck had a difficult afternoon by his standards and was barely involved for a period of the second half, before moving to centre as Euan Aitken went to the wing.
It was another frustrating performance from the Warriors.
‘‘We got ourselves back into the contest through our scoring where I would much rather us learn to stay in the contest in the first half with our defence,’’ Brown said.
‘‘That’s the challenge for us in the shorter term is, if we can get that part sorted. We just go to those little stages where we leak a block of tries, and then it’s hard to hard to regroup.
‘‘We certainly feel like we’re making progress,’’ Brown added.
‘‘It sometimes appears like we’re not getting there but we could never earlier in the year have defended the second half like we did, off the back of having no ball.’’ —