Warriors captain Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has backed Ardie Savea's potential move to league, and suggested the two should team up again.
Savea announced earlier this week that he had ambitions to make the move from union to league and go on to represent Samoa – something he is ineligible to doin the 15-man game.
Tuivasa-Sheck, who was once in a New Zealand schoolboys union team with Savea, said the Hurricanes and All Blacks loose forward would transition perfectly into the sport.
"He's just a champion athlete to be honest," Tuivasa-Sheck said.
"He's just someone who challenges himself each time and is always looking for a new challenge. If he does, I wish him all the best – and hopefully he comes (to the Warriors)."
Savea would be a welcome addition to the Warriors this season, with the build to play anywhere in the pack, as the side deals with a number of season-ending injuries to players who seemed set to feature in the 2020 campaign.
Prop Bunty Afoa tore his ACL during a contact training session last week. Fellow prop Jackson Frei suffered the same season-ending injury during the side's pre-season trial loss against the Storm at the weekend, while Jazz Tevaga, who spends time at both hooker and lock, is expected to be out until at least round five after having ankle surgery in the off-season.
Speaking ahead of the Warriors' pre-season trial against Wests Tigers in Rotorua on Sunday, coach Stephen Kearney said the injuries were something the side simply had to deal with.
"We have a couple of guys who have been training and trailing for us," Kearney said.
"In regards to both Bunty and Jackson, it's not ideal but what you've got to live with in our game is that sometimes that's going to happen. It's how we navigate ourselves around that, which we're pretty confident of doing.
"We've been looking at that all preseason, in terms of spreading the workload to the team with regards to getting the forwards a bit more involved in the game from an attack point of view. We've worked that way all preseason, so I'm sad to lose them but there's not much you can do about it."
