Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Luke Metcalf have been confirmed on the six-man bench for the One New Zealand Warriors’ round 21 contest against Canterbury Bankstown at Accor Stadium in Sydney today (5.30pm kick-off local time; 7.30pm NZT).
Both were named as reserves in the original squad on Tuesday but have moved onto the bench with Eddie Ieremia-Toeava, Marata Niukore and Rocco Berry all omitted to play for the club’s New South Wales Cup side’s match against the Bulldogs today.
Nicoll-Klokstad and Metcalf join Sam Healey, Tanner Stowers-Smith, Demitric Vaimauga and Leka Halasima.
The Warriors will field the same starting lineup used in last Saturday’s 12th win of the season against St George Illawarra.
Coming off a 32-6 win over the Wests Tigers and a gruelling 20-12 victory over the Dragons, the Warriors consolidated their second place on the ladder but have slipped to third following the Roosters’ win over the Knights last night. They’ll reclaim second spot if they win tonight.
It’s just the second week in the last two months that the Warriors have been able to field a combination including Mitchell Barnett, James Fisher-Harris, Kurt Capewell, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Alofi’ana Khan-Pereira and Leka Halasima.
Barnett and Fisher-Harris ran for almost 200 metres while Watene-Zelezniak made 227 metres from 22 runs.
The Bulldogs have recovered from a challenging first phase of the season to move to 10th on the table after a strong run of form which has netted four wins in their last five starts including a 32-0 shutout against the Tigers last week.