Halfback Luke Metcalf made a triumphant return to the NZ Warriors, leading his current team to a stunning 28-12 victory the NRL table-topping Penrith Panthers at Auckland’s Go Media Stadium.<\/p>\n
Metcalf was summoned into the Warriors line-up, after Te Maire Martin pulled out with a hamstring injury, and celebrated his comeback with two tries and 16 points, as the home side never really let their rivals into the game.<\/p>\n
They pounced early with a try to lock Erin Clark, before Metcalf grabbed his first, looming in support of break by second-rower Kurt Capewell.<\/p>\n
Five-eighth Chanel Harris-Tavita added another try before halftime, as the Warriors took an 18-0 lead into the sheds.<\/p>\n
They had not lost a game that they led at the break this season and they took another step towards victory, when fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad – another forced to wait his turn this season – was first to score after the restart.<\/p>\n
Penrith threatened to spoil the party, when they scored back-to-back tries to halfback Nathan Cleary and fullback Jaxen Edgar, both masterminded by Cleary.<\/p>\n
They crossed for a third to wing Paul Alamoti, but it was overruled for offside in a kick chase.<\/p>\n
Moments later, Metcalf sealed the win with his second try.<\/p>\n
The result consolidates the Warriors’ position in the top three – it puts them second on points difference, with Sydney Roosters yet to play this weekend – now two points behind Penrith.<\/p>\n
See how the game unfolded in our blog:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halfback Luke Metcalf made a triumphant return to the NZ Warriors, leading his current team to a stunning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-561785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561785","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=561785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}