Rugby league: Warriors not getting too ahead of themselves as Government announces plan to reopen border

Jazz Tevaga. Photo / Photosport

Shaun Johnson has received the Jazz Tevaga seal of approval should he ever wish to run for office, after the halfback shared his thoughts on New Zealand's border protocol last week.

Having spent the past few years plying his trade in Australia, Johnson and his wife, Kayla, returned to New Zealand late last year after rejoining the Warriors.

His return was fleeting, however, with the Warriors forced to begin the season in Australia again and New Zealand's borders locked due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19 making its way into the country.

Last week, Johnson voiced his opinions on the situation in response to a social media post made by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urging people to get their booster shot of the vaccine.

"If there's one thing I could ask of you today is please open our boarders (sic) and at least allow home quarantine," Johnson commented. "Put faith in the 96 per cent that have listened and followed your rules to do the right thing if there is an outbreak. The negative effects your current system is having on kiwis and their family's is far worse than the virus. From someone who's double vaxxed and had covid. Respectfully."

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Since then, the New Zealand Government has revealed plans to open the borders which could see the Warriors play at home again at some point during the 2022 season.

While Johnson's comments were met with both support and disdain, Tevaga said it was good for people in a similar situation to see someone like Johnson voice his opinion on the subject.

"There was a bit of noise there on social media with Shauny. He's just speaking his mind. I think what he said was good and it would be good for people to relate and feel like they had a voice through Shauny," Tevaga said.

"He would make a good PM too, I reckon."

Under the recently announced five-step plan to open the New Zealand border, the Warriors would be able to return home to play under step three – set to come into effect in mid-April.

However, under that setting, teams would still have to observe seven days of self-isolation; not an ideal situation for a professional sport team facing a quick turnaround between games.

Addressing the situation with media on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Sport Grant Robertson said at step four, with visa waiver countries such as Australia, there would be "significantly more" ability for sport and cultural events to move backwards and forwards, meaning a late-season return home was far more likely for the Warriors.

Speaking of the news, Tevaga said it wasn't something they had formally addressed as a team, but they weren't going to get their hopes up about playing a home game in 2022 just yet.

"With all the stuff that we've been through, we're not really fazed. We don't get our hopes up because we know it can all change within a couple of minutes. We just try to keep our minds focused on our job. We're here to get through the season and win the comp, so that's at the front of our heads," Tevaga said.

"We haven't discussed it but the boys have had a few chats amongst ourselves in the changing rooms and it's obviously good news for us because we've been hoping to play some home games. We've been looking forward to that for a long time.

"It's been about three years since we've been at home, so hopefully with that border rule change we can get home and play some footy games in front of our fans."