Webster: Metcalf important but no certainty to face Saints

A fascinating Team List Tuesday awaits with an underdone Luke Metcalf potentially sitting out the Warriors' clash with his future club.

Warriors coach Andrew Webster hinted that Te Maire Martin could retain the halfback role for Saturday’s road trip to take on St George Illawarra following Tanah Boyd’s serious knee injury, with Luke Metcalf’s availability up in the air after a tumultuous couple of weeks.

Martin entered the Magic Round fray after just seven minutes with the in-form Boyd suffering a suspected ACL injury. The 30-year-old — who had played just one NSW Cup game since breaking his leg playing for Māori All Stars in February — was magnificent, laying on two tries, scoring another and defending the house down in a 42-12 thrashing of the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium.

“We know that Te Maire’s going to come on and do his role … he did a terrific job today, and that’s a celebration to our whole system, to our assistant coaches preparing him, and to ‘T’ himself,” Webster praised post-match.

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The cruel irony of Boyd’s injury, in the wake of the dramatic events that saw Metcalf sensationally quit the club on Tuesday to take up a three-year deal with the Dragons from 2027, is almost unbelievable.

Metcalf himself tore his ACL just metres away from the same patch of grass in late-June last season, cutting short a breakout individual campaign, derailing the Warriors’ title hopes and essentially setting in motion the recent sequence of contractual events.

Metcalf has played just twice — at five-eighth in the Warriors’ only two losses this year — but now shapes as the player most likely to step into the No.7 breach for the rest of 2026 for an out-and-out premiership contender.

If that isn’t enough black comedy for you, the Warriors’ next game in five games’ time is against the club Metcalf has just signed for — but Webster said there’s plenty to unpack before settling on the line-up before 6pm (NZT) Tuesday.

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“I don’t know if he’s available for selection next week, but he’s available for the rest of the year,” Webster explained. “We just have to tidy up his contract.

“He hasn’t trained, he hasn’t done one rep of footy because of the bye — and because of his contract negotiations — for the last two weeks. We need to get him back doing reps, because we don’t want to throw him back in and he gets injured.

“He’ll be eligible for selection as soon as he’s fit … he’s running, he’s fit, but he hasn’t done any football drills at all.

“It’s bad for footy to have people out there training in harm’s way when they’re going through so much [emotional] stuff, you don’t want to have them out there doing football drills and in front of collisions.

“If he wasn’t important to us, we’d ask him to leave now. We don’t want him to [leave], we want him to stay.

“We want him this year, prior to [Boyd’s injury]. He knows that and he wants to stay, he wants to be part of this for the rest of the year.

“He becomes important. But we’ve got Te Maire Martin, Luke Hanson, Jett Cleary. We’ve got a host of players who can do a really good job.”