{"id":345885,"date":"2026-03-24T20:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/345885\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T20:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T20:38:12","slug":"luke-metcalf-named-for-early-warriors-return-against-wests-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/345885\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Metcalf named for early Warriors return against Wests Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

NZ Herald<\/p>\n

24 Mar, 2026 06:11 AM2 mins to read<\/p>\n

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Playmaker Luke Metcalf is back ahead of schedule for the New Zealand Warriors\u2019 round-four clash with the Wests Tigers at Go Media Stadium on Friday night.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old\u2019s 2025 campaign was ended by an ACL knee injury in the round 17 clash against the Broncos in Brisbane last June.<\/p>\n

\n Initially
\n slated to return as late as round 10 this season, his comeback came forward to round six last week and today he has been confirmed to slot straight back into the halves in partnership with in-form Tanah Boyd for the first time.\n <\/p>\n

Boyd has again been named at halfback with Metcalf in the No 6 jersey, his return a major boost coming just a week after co-captain Mitchell Barnett came back from his knee injury to make his 50th appearance for the Warriors last Saturday.<\/p>\n

Three other frontliners also return after missing the 38-12 win over Newcastle last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZ Herald 24 Mar, 2026 06:11 AM2 mins to read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9092,3017,1863,3019,2245,2082,4999,102883,1073,104115,10136,111,139,2551,69,33320,1527,184185,1306,213,16674,22768,3006,22767,102,80],"class_list":["post-345885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-against","tag-ahead","tag-back","tag-clash","tag-early","tag-for","tag-friday","tag-luke","tag-media","tag-metcalf","tag-named","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-playmaker","tag-return","tag-roundfour","tag-schedule","tag-sports","tag-stadium","tag-tigers","tag-warriors","tag-wests","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}