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Winger Alofi\u2019ana Khan-Pereira and second rower Morgan Gannon have been omitted from the One New Zealand Warriors\u2019 20-man game day squad for Sunday\u2019s round five NRL clash against Cronulla Sutherland at Ocean Protect Stadium in Sydney (2.00pm kick-off local time; 4.00pm NZT).<\/p>\n
Centre Ali Leiataua, listed in jersey #23, remains among the reserves.<\/p>\n
There was only one change made to the six-man interchange named on Tuesday with co-captain Mitchell Barnett omitted after breaking his right thumb against Wests Tigers last week in just his second match back from knee surgery.<\/p>\n
Demitric Vaimauga, an unused reserve against the Tigers, comes back into the mix in the top 17 in jersey #16 with second rower Eddie Ieremia-Toeava added to the reserves.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old Barnett was forced to wait 293 days to make his comeback from knee surgery but after just two games (and 87 minutes) he is now out for a yet be determined period.<\/p>\n
As well as Barnett the other senior NRL players still unavailable are second rower Kurt Capewell (calf), halfback Te Maire Martin (leg) and centre Rocco Berry (shoulder).<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s first loss of the season has left the One New Zealand Warriors second behind the Panthers, the competition\u2019s only unbeaten side after four rounds.<\/p>\n
It ended a brief one-week reign holding down first spot on the ladder, just the third time the Warriors have claimed the #1 position in their 31-year history (first for a week after round one in 2019 and first after round 26 \u2013 and winners of the minor premiership \u2013 in 2002).<\/p>\n
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With a 3-1 record the Warriors now face a Sharks side with a 2-2 scorecard sitting ninth on the ladder after mixed performances.<\/p>\n
They dominated the Titans 50-10 in round one but then fell 6-26 to the Panthers and 10-38 to the Dolphins at home before beating the Raiders 34-22 in Canberra on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The One New Zealand Warriors have come away winners in their last three visits to the newly named Ocean Protect Stadium.<\/p>\n
They put on their best performance of last year\u2019s campaign when they won 40-10 there in round 14 (the week after losing Barnett for the season) while they finished ahead in two-point thrillers in 2024 (30-28) and 2023 (32-30).<\/p>\n
Overall the Sharks have a 29-22 advantage in 51 meetings between the two clubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winger Alofi\u2019ana Khan-Pereira and second rower Morgan Gannon have been omitted from the One New Zealand Warriors\u2019 20-man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-584320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}