TWL Rd 4 Preview: Reinforced Warriors to rumble on against rudderless Tigers

The on-fire home side are heavy favourites on Friday, while the pre-game attention is predominantly on who's in the Warriors' No.6 jersey and who's missing from the Tigers'.

WARRIORS V WESTS TIGERS – 8.00PM (NZT)/6.00PM (AEDT) SATURDAY, MARCH 27 @ GO MEDIA MOUNT SMART STADIUM, AUCKLAND

The Storylines: The Warriors are the toast of the NRL, sitting top of the table after just second 3-0 start in their history and scoring the most points across the opening three rounds by any team in the past 20 seasons.

Shaping as a top-four threat at worst – and a genuine premiership contender if you want to get prematurely optimistic – the Warriors have laid an outstanding foundation for a successful campaign.

Wests Tigers are rank outsiders as they arrive in Auckland, despite following up an opening-round bye with a 44-16 destruction of North Queensland and a gallant 20-16 loss in the face of key mid-game injuries against South Sydney.

The absence of million-dollar man Jarome Luai leaves the Tigers looking a little thin in the leadership, experience and playmaking departments.

But the most prominent storyline of Round 4, for Warriors fans at least, is the ahead-of-schedule return of Luke Metcalf. The mouth-watering prospect of the quicksilver game-breaker Metcalf pairing with an in-form, more traditional No.7 in Tanah Boyd will be a major focus in this clash – though it’s best not to expect any immediate highlights from a guy coming back from an ACL injury.