Warriors coach Andrew Webster has confirmed star five-eighth Luke Metcalf will miss next week’s trip to Melbourne to face the Storm after sustaining a hamstring injury in their 36-22 defeat to the Cronulla Sharks.
Late in the second half Metcalf, in his second match back from an ACL injury, wasrunning with the ball and threw a pass out to Roger Tuivasa-Sheck when he stopped suddenly and clutched at his left hamstring.
Metcalf took himself off and hobbled up the sheds, as the Warriors were forced to finish the game with 12 players having already used their eight allocated interchanges.
The injury came moments after a brief stoppage in play where centre Charnze Nicol-Klokstad picked up a heavy blow to the head, and he was treated on the field for a neck injury before walking off the field.
While Webster is confident Nicol-Klokstad should be fine to face the Storm, having passed all the initial checks, he said Metcalf’s situation is complicated due to his long history with hamstring injuries and he will require scans to determine the severity of the injury.
“Luke’s had a few obviously in the past and he currently feels like it is okay,” Webster said.
“As in, he’s going to miss time but he doesn’t feel like it’s a long-term one but he’s just talking about how he felt with others in the past.
Luke Metcalf picked up a hamstring injury in the Warriors' loss to the Sharks. Photo / Photosport
“Charnze is not a concussion, it’s a neck. He just got jarred. He passed his test in there and said he didn’t feel concussed at all. He’s just worried about his neck and they’ve cleared him so far.”
Metcalf will join Mitch Barnett, Rocco Berry and Te Maire Martin in the casualty ward.
In positive news, the Warriors could welcome back Kurt Capewell from a calf injury.
With Metcalf out, Webster will likely inject Chanel Harris-Tavita to the side to partner Tanah Boyd in the halves, a combination used in their opening two games of the season.
The combination of Metcalf and Boyd hasn’t yielded the results Webster would have liked, but he insists there are positives.
“There’s a couple of things just individually I don’t think they’d be rapt with, but I wouldn’t say cohesion or combinations were an issue there,” Webster said.
“Certainly with those two, I thought I’ll have to have another look at it, but I don’t think they were out of sync together, it was more overplaying at times.”
The Warriors travelled back to Auckland immediately after the match and will begin preparation to face the Storm, who are suffering their own crisis at the moment.
The Storm are on a three-game losing streak and are coming off a 50-10 defeat to the Penrith Panthers - equalling their biggest losing margin under Craig Bellamy (2008 Grand Final), while it was the first time since 2003 they conceded 50 points.
However, they have history on their side against the Warriors.
The Warriors have lost 17 straight matches against the Storm, with their last win coming against them in 2015, while you have to go back a further year since they last won in Melbourne.
“I feel pretty good about it,” Fisher-Harris said.
“I don’t think over the last 10 years or something, it’s some sort of record that we haven’t won. It’s not about them losing three in a row, it’s about us.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Ben Francis is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.
