RTS willing to move over for prodigy
Captain will do what it takes for his team
Warriors’ captain Roger Tuivasa-Sheck 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, Tuivasa-Sheck will shift when Walsh is on the field, to allow the 18-year-old to play at the back.
That happened in Sunday’s 34-18 loss to the Eels, as Tuivasa-Sheck moved to the right wing when Rocco Berry left the field with a head knock, with Walsh playing 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],” said Brown 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 highest paid 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’s a conundrum for Brown, finding a way to fit Walsh and Tuivasa-Sheck into the spine, without sacrificing one of his regular halves.
Against the Cowboys Walsh started at five eighth — with Chanel Harris-Tavita 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,” said Brown. “But we want to win the games now as well so it’s probably a balancing act, but Rogers 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 162 metres.
It wasn’t perfect — with a couple of poor options — but whenever he was around the ball things seemed to happen. Conversely Tuivasa-Sheck 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.
The first 20 minutes was easily their worst quarter this season, as Parramatta eased to a 24-0 lead. The 2021 Eels are impressive, but the Warriors continually invited pressure.
After that blitzkrieg, the Warriors showed resolve and grit to come back into the contest.
Their defence for periods of the second half was highly impressive, and their attack sparkled off the back of that. At 28-18 with more than 15 minutes to play there was a definite chance, but they couldn’t capitalise on some promising situations.
“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,” said Brown. “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,” added Brown. “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.
“But we need to be able to learn to do it in the first part of the game when the opposition are really fresh so that the score board doesn’t put too much pressure on us.”