Luke Metcalf will need to fight his way back into first grade after the replacement halves pairing earned Andrew Webster’s tick of approval in the Warriors’ 36-14 win over the plucky Parramatta Eels.<\/p>\n
As a newly fit Metcalf sat unused on the interchange bench, halves duo Tanah Boyd and Chanel Harris-Tavita gave the Warriors a 16-6 half-time lead in Parramatta on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Boyd helped the Warriors draw level at 6-6 with a beautiful short pass for Leka Halasima on the right side, before Chanel Harris-Tavita put Alofiana Khan-Pereira over for his first of two tries on the left.<\/p>\n
Harris-Tavita double-pumped to help Roger Tuivasa-Sheck score late, officially sealing a game that had been in the balance until the final 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
The Warriors will finish the weekend in the top four and have now won all six games when Boyd and Harris-Tavita have started in the halves this season.<\/p>\n
A halves dilemma loomed given the return of Metcalf, who holds a longer contract than both Boyd and Harris-Tavita and was a front-runner for last year’s Dally M Medal before injury struck.<\/p>\n
But as long as the Warriors keep winning, Boyd and Harris-Tavita will keep starting.<\/p>\n
“I’m not making any changes to them. They deserve to stay there and they’ve done a good job,” coach Webster said.<\/p>\n
“We’re just picking the team on form. Luke’s done nothing wrong. He’s a good player and if the opportunity comes, he’ll take it. But right now this is the best thing for the team.”<\/p>\n
The Eels lost yet another player in hooker Ryley Smith (sternum) early on Saturday night but continue to hold the gloves amid their injury crisis.<\/p>\n
“It adds another layer of challenge to it, that’s for sure,” said coach Jason Ryles.<\/p>\n
Five-eighth Ronald Volkman staked his claim to keep prized recruit Jonah Pezet out of the team, scoring two tries in a standout individual performance.<\/p>\n
“Ronny’s been great, he’s been very consistent with this effort, especially defensively, which is something that he’s not known for,” said Ryles.<\/p>\n
Hours after Pezet returned from his hamstring injury via NSW Cup, Volkman gave the Eels a surprise 6-0 lead dummying past Boyd and Halasima for first points.<\/p>\n
With 20 minutes to play, he put Parramatta within four points by grabbing a Mitch Moses kick that Adam Pompey fumbled.<\/p>\n
Ryles said he would “wait and see” who would start at five-eighth against North Queensland next week.<\/p>\n
“We’ll have a look at the tape again and we’ll sort of review it from there and see what the best combination and best fit is going forward,” he said.<\/p>\n
But the Eels fell away late, having fallen off the pace in the second half last week as well.<\/p>\n
Minutes after Volkman’s second try, Erin Clark put in-form Jackson Ford through a gaping hole in the Eels’ middle, before Alofiana Khan-Pereira completed his double by intercepting a Moses pass deep in Eels territory.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think the scoreline reflected the fight and the effort that we displayed tonight,” Ryles said. <\/p>\n
“(But) a lot of our fundamental errors, and I’m not saying just with the ball, but escort penalties, kick pressure penalties, sort of hurt us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Metcalf will need to fight his way back into first grade after the replacement halves pairing earned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39,3006],"class_list":["post-409755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409755","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=409755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}