{"id":350287,"date":"2026-03-27T08:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/350287\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:54:12","slug":"nrl-confirmed-lineup-taine-tuaupiki-starts-at-fullback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/350287\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL Confirmed Lineup: Taine Tuaupiki starts at fullback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taine Tuaupiki has been brought in to start at fullback in the One New Zealand Warriors\u2019 round four Pasifika Night clash against the Wests Tigers at Go Media Stadium tonight (8.00pm kick-off).<\/p>\n

The in-form Tuaupiki, so impressive at fullback in last Saturday\u2019s 38-12 win over the Knights, was named among the reserves in jersey #21 on Tuesday with the returning Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad listed in the #1 jersey.<\/p>\n

However, head coach Andrew Webster has moved Nicoll-Klokstad to the centres allowing Tuaupiki to retain the fullback\u2019s job.<\/p>\n

Nicoll-Klokstad started at centre three times last season while he also filled the position for the Kiwis during the Pacific Championships.<\/p>\n

The swap resulted in Ali Leiataua being released to appear for the Warriors\u2019 New South Wales Cup side in the early match against Western Suburbs.<\/p>\n

The confirmed six-man bench is Sam Healey, Mitchell Barnett, Demitric Vaimauga, Tanner Stowers-Smith, Marata Niukore and Chanel Harris-Tavita.<\/p>\n

After coming through training this week, playmaker Luke Metcalf has been cleared to make his NRL comeback ahead of schedule.<\/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


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Initially slated to return as late as round 10 this season, his comeback came forward to round seven and then to round six last week but on Tuesday he was named to slot straight back into the halves in partnership with in-from Tanah Boyd for the first time. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Boyd has again been named at halfback with Metcalf in the #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

Nicoll-Klokstad and Chanel Harris-Tavita were both ruled out last week as they followed NRL concussion protocols after head knocks in the 40-6 round two win over minor premiers the Canberra Raiders.<\/p>\n

Adam Pompey stayed in Auckland to be with his wife Casey for the birth of their daughter Kiara Dawn, delivered the same day (March 21) his teammates beat the Newcastle Knights to move to the top of the NRL table after three straight wins.<\/p>\n

He returns to his customary centre role on the left edge where Leka Halasima filled in on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Halasima, who has four tries in the first three games, reverts to the second row where he was due to play last week before Pompey was ruled out.<\/p>\n


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The One New Zealand Warriors have won the opening three matches of the season for only the second time in the club\u2019s history; the first was in 2018 when the Warriors put together a run of five victories on end to open the campaign.<\/p>\n

In 39 matches against the Tigers they have a 23-16 win-loss record having won the last nine straight and 10 of the last 11 encounters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taine Tuaupiki has been brought in to start at fullback in the One New Zealand Warriors\u2019 round four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-350287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350287","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=350287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}