Will Kennedy has warned he’s open to the prospect of leaving Cronulla if he feels it’s best, after the off-contract fullback scored a double in the Sharks’ 36-22 win over the Warriors.<\/p>\n
On a day when the Warriors lost luckless playmaker Luke Metcalf to a hamstring injury, the Sharks recorded back-to-back wins for the first time this year to go back into the NRL top eight.<\/p>\n
Kennedy is one of 13 Sharks off contract at year’s end, with his future having been in limbo for the past 18 months after only inking a one-year extension in October.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old opted to stay on that occasion with a heavily pregnant wife and limited options elsewhere, but his avenues could potentially open up now with Perth still yet to sign a No.1 for next year.<\/p>\n
William Kennedy celebrates after scoring a try.\u00a0Photo by Matt Blyth\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
“I’ll do whatever is best for my family. I just had a newborn, so it was only right for me to stay that one more year here,” Kennedy said after Sunday’s win.<\/p>\n
“I want to keep playing footy. If I stay here, happy days. I love this club. But if I have to do what’s best for my family then I have to do it.”<\/p>\n
Realistically, Cronulla must decide if Kennedy is their long-term No.1, or if Liam Ison is the man to replace him.<\/p>\n
Complicating the matter is that Ison has not played since rupturing his ACL last March.<\/p>\n
What is clear though is that Kennedy is fitting in nicely with a Sharks spine that has continuity on their side.<\/p>\n
The fullback finished Sunday with nine tackle busts to go with his two tries, and also put Sione Katoa into space late.<\/p>\n
“I’ve still got more in me,” Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
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“Every player has more in them and I think I have more levels to myself, I just want to keep playing footy and winning more games.”<\/p>\n
KL Iro also tormented the Warriors’ right edge with a try and nine tackle busts, while Nicho Hynes and Braydon Trindall combined nicely.<\/p>\n
There were some concerns for the Sharks though, with Jesse Ramien suffering suspected medial ligament damage in his knee and Tom Hazleton hurting his ankle.<\/p>\n
The Warriors, meanwhile, hope Metcalf won’t face an extended period on the sidelines after he limped off late.<\/p>\n
The star of last season and Dally M leader before he suffered an ACL rupture, Metcalf had only returned from that injury last week against Wests Tigers before Sunday’s blow.<\/p>\n
He has a history of hamstring injuries, with Chanel Harris-Tavita in line to replace him.<\/p>\n
“He’s going to miss time, but he doesn’t feel like it’s a long-term one with how he’s felt about others in the past,” Warriors coach Andrew Webster said.<\/p>\n
Making matters worse for the Warriors is a neck injury for centre Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, who was at least cleared of a concussion.<\/p>\n
After winning their first three games the Warriors attack was below-par with Metcalf and Tanah Boyd, but Webster was adamant that was down to tough days individually rather than a cohesion issue.<\/p>\n
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak scored the first three of the Warriors’ tries, including when he picked off a Trindall pass to go 80 metres and score in front of a chasing Kennedy.<\/p>\n
The winger’s third — again from another brilliant corner put down — had the Warriors back to 24-16 down after halftime.<\/p>\n
But when Blayke Brailey grubber-kicked out of dummy-half for a chasing Teig Wilton with 30 minutes to go, the game was effectively over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Kennedy has warned he’s open to the prospect of leaving Cronulla if he feels it’s best, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-586696","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\/586696","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=586696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}