Recruitment Warriors 2025/2026 Recruitment & Retention

Warriors 2025/2026 Recruitment & Retention Discussion​

-	Player	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029
1	Bunty Afoa	✔
2	Tom Ale	✔
3	Mitchell Barnett	✔	✔	✔
4	Rocco Berry	✔	✔
5	Tanah Boyd	✔	✔
6	Kurt Capewell	✔	✔
7	Erin Clark	✔	✔	✔
8	Jett Cleary	✔	S	S
9	Wayde Egan	✔	✔	✔
10	James Fisher-Harris	✔	✔	✔	✔
11	Jackson Ford	✔	✔	✔
12	Leka Halasima	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
13	Morgan Harper	✔
14	Chanel Harris-Tavita	✔	✔
15	Sam Healey	✔	✔	✔
16	Edward Kosi	✔
17	Jacob Laban	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
18	Ali Leiataua	✔	✔	✔
19	Jye Linnane	✔	✔	✔	✔
20	Freddy Lussick	✔	✔
21	Te Maire Martin	✔
22	Luke Metcalf	✔	✔
23	Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad	✔	✔	✔
24	Marata Niukore	✔	✔
25	Adam Pompey	✔	✔	✔
26	Tanner Stowers-Smith	✔	✔	✔
27	Taine Tuaupiki	✔	✔
28	Roger Tuivasa-Sheck	✔	✔
29	Demitric Vaimauga	✔	✔	✔	✔
30	Dallin Watene-Zelezniak	✔	✔	✔
S1	Kayliss Fatialofa	S
S2	Kalani Going	S
S3	Luke Hanson	S
S4	Eddie Ieremia-Toeava	S	✔	✔
S5	Sio Kali	S
S6	Patrick Moimoi	S
-	Kahu Capper	T	T
-	Morgan Gannon	-	✔	✔	✔
-	Motu Pasikala	T	?	?

C = Club option, M = Mutual option, P = Player option, S = Supplementary contract, T = Train & Trial contract

Top 30 2025: 30/30
Supplementary 2025: 6/6

Top 30 2026: 26/30
Supplementary 2026: 1/6

2026 Gains: Morgan Gannon (Leeds Rhinos)
2026 Losses: Edward Kosi (South Sydney Rabbitohs)

Off Contract: Bunty Afoa, Tom Ale, Morgan Harper, Te Maire Martin
Can negotiate with other clubs from Nov 1, 2025 (Entering final year) : Rocco Berry, Tanah Boyd, Kurt Capewell, Chanel Harris-Tavita, Freddy Lussick, Luke Metcalf, Marata Niukore, Taine Tuaupiki, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck

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[Rick O’Shay]

Develop Healey into a half and it will solve all our problems for half the money.

Luke is a liability, his track record proves it and until there are guarantees that he can last a season he is worth 5/10ths of FA Dally M or not.

He's not the future of the half dilemma in the club. We need to be looking elsewhere

 

[roguei]

Oh then I did misunderstand. My apologies.

But you're 100% right in the sense that this is rention related. And for the record i do agree that just because the knights fucked up and brought brown for 1.3m. Doesn't necessarily mean the market has decided someone of brown's caliber is worth that amount. Need it to happen at least one more time for it not to be an outlier.

 

[Wrighty]

But you're 100% right in the sense that this is rention related. And for the record i do agree that just because the knights fucked up and brought brown for 1.3m. Doesn't necessarily mean the market has decided someone of brown's caliber is worth that amount. Need it to happen at least one more time for it not to be an outlier.

Hard out Brown is an outlier. Well said. Cleary on the other hand is worth whatever he is paid. So that will be an earthquake if he resigns at $2M.

 

[Mr. Brownstone]

If Craig Bellamy brought Brown for that price it would set the market, but its the knights and Adam O'Brian

I would not be offering metcalf more than 700k

It was Peter O’Sullivan actually - considered by plenty to be the guru on the subject of signings (I’m not a fan however). $700k… now there’s some comedy.

 

[peewee]

Develop Healey into a half and it will solve all our problems for half the money.

Luke is a liability, his track record proves it and until there are guarantees that he can last a season he is worth 5/10ths of FA Dally M or not.

He's not the future of the half dilemma in the club. We need to be looking elsewhere

Well said.
I also don't think he is an elite half YET. And is injured
So he is only worth what he's worth. And that is not 1mil
Don't go by what Brown got, !.3 mil is absolutely overpriced
Cleary now he is a proven half and is well worth 1.5 mill

 

[Wrighty]

While not wrong, these numbers don't show that Metcalf played 7 of those 15 games (47%) against teams who currently sit inside the top 8, the side won 3 of these and scored an average of 19.7 points across the 7. Boyd has faced 1 current top 8 team (8th) and we only scored 18 points.

18 points is all right. The Storm are the top team for scoring and average 30.68 points per game this year - the Knights are the worst with 15.78 points per game.

Life would be just fine with Tannah Boyd as our half back if Metcalf walked out on us because we wouldn't give him $1M as my numerical analysis shows.

Now what I say next from years of experience will resonate with this forum while I was lucky to get even you to respond to my "smoking gun" stats analysis

Metcalf and Boyd in the team will lead to about the same Warriors score line every week as we would score an extra try with Metcalf in the team but get a couple more conversions over with Tannah.

 

[3rdstriker]

Bloody thread jumped up 4 pages this avo, I was like please be a signing.
Instead just discussing whether Metcalf should go or stay.
Imo we're in the box seat he's still under contract here plus he can't play a full season yet so until he plays at least 1 or 2 seasons then in no way does he deserve that million,
His ceiling does deserve it but he's just too risky.

 

[Mr. Brownstone]

Hard out Brown is an outlier. Well said. Cleary on the other hand is worth whatever he is paid. So that will be an earthquake if he resigns at $2M.

No more of an outlier than Jackson Hastings on $800k at the Knights, or Luai on $1.2m despite hardly putting an attacking stat together all season. Plenty of other examples as well.

 

[John Nick]

Well said.
I also don't think he is an elite half YET. And is injured
So he is only worth what he's worth. And that is not 1mil

Depending on what other clubs are prepared to offer him and then if management is willing to match or not.
Expansion will make this interesting and possibly boost his price.
He does appear to be injury prone but unfortunately he was flying until the unfortunate incident this year

 

[peewee]

Depending on what other clubs are prepared to offer him and then if management is willing to match or not.
Expansion will make this interesting and possibly boost his price.
He does appear to be injury prone but unfortunately he was flying until the unfortunate incident this year

So do airplanes until they crash. Then they are worth nothing

 

[3rdstriker]

He does appear to be injury prone

He does appear injury prone?
Is heeee?

 

[Wrighty]

No more of an outlier than Jackson Hastings on $800k at the Knights, or Luai on $1.2m despite hardly putting an attacking stat together all season. Plenty of other examples as well.

100% of my argument isn't his quality as a player is that he can't stay on the field for a material number of games to be of any use to us resigning him.

Brown is more of an outlier than Luai as Luai has leadership intangibles, He is the captain of the tigers. Dylan Brown will never be the captain of the Knights despite being the franchise player and on franchise money.
Brown is more of an outlier than Jackson Hastings on $800K as other nuffy halves are on wickets like that and have been for years. And no one cares. Eg Brooks was on a million and it didn't reset the industry it was viewed as an outlier signing that was folly.

 

[Mr. Brownstone]

100% of my argument isn't his quality as a player is that he can't stay on the field for a material number of games to be of any use to us resigning him.

Brown is more of an outlier than Luai as Luai has leadership intangibles, He is the captain of the tigers. Dylan Brown will never be the captain of the Knights despite being the franchise player and on franchise money.
Brown is more of an outlier than Jackson Hastings on $800K as other nuffy halves are on wickets like that and have been for years. And no one cares. Eg Brooks was on a million and it didn't reset the industry it was viewed as an outlier signing that was folly.

So who do we realistically sign instead? Plenty of players have gone through bad injury runs & come out the other side - Benji, Teddy both had awful starts to their careers with injuries. Trell hasn’t played more than 17 games in a season since 2019. Cleary’s missed plenty of footy. I say take the gamble & pay Metcalf the big bucks - fortune favours the brave!

 

[Defence]

Gotta remember we’re the only club who can upgrade him for 2026- we’ve got that up our sleeve.

 

[Ref]

Metcalf has been the most influential player in our team this year and took us to the top 4.
I suspect that the deal has been done.
He is staying.
He knows we can win a premiership.
Loyalty factor.
Likes it here.
Money acceptable both ways.

 

[MrFrankWhite]

Of course his previous injuries are relevant as they were all injuries. That's what's being injury prone means. There is no common cause to the injuries for an injury prone player and all of them are down to bad luck but some players have bad luck and are "injury prone" nonetheless.

Here are some numbers and I don't expect these to carry the day as people on this web site don't rate stats but on other websites I have been on the stats I am about to post would be a smoking gun.

Warriors games with Luke Metcalf at Halfback 2025 season 15 games team average score 21.27
Warriors games with Tannah Boyd at Halfback 2025 season 4 games team average score 22.00

One of your sample sizes is 1/4 of the other.

 

[John Nick]

So do airplanes until they crash. Then they are worth nothing

Yeah mate but we are still dependent on them.

 

[Wrighty]

So who do we realistically sign instead? Plenty of players have gone through bad injury runs & come out the other side - Benji, Teddy both had awful starts to their careers with injuries. Trell hasn’t played more than 17 games in a season since 2019. Cleary’s missed plenty of footy. I say take the gamble & pay Metcalf the big bucks - fortune favours the brave!

I love the way you have held court on this as it has given us four pages to discuss.

Metcalf is signed through all of 2026 with the Warriors and he is here next year no matter what. He is approachable November 1 for the Perth Bears and yes they will go at him with $1M. They would be crazy not to as they aren't getting any one else and he can be the 7 next to Munster as he is apparently going there and they can have a decent spine to kick off their franchise.
Maybe luke takes the money maybe he doesn't but if we get into a bidding war with Perth I can see it being $1.1M and not $1M he finally signs for much to his agents delight. Our best play to not make him an offer and tell him we will wait until the end of next season before making him an offer so we can assess his durability next year and if he doesn't want to play that game and wants his million which is understandable let him walk - but we are not Perth - they have nothing to lose by playing him a Million dollars as they aren't making the playoffs anyway in their first 5 years so it doesn't matter if they have too much money tied up in him. We do stand to lose as we all agree we could actually win the comp next year 2026 or 2027 as our success formula is different than other teams. We have a modestly priced spine and have plenty invested in the forwards which is our unique formula that McFadden and Mohawk have cooked up and we ideally need to keep to that.

Who do realistically sign instead? No one. Next year we do have Metcalf. And for 2027 the club has tried to load up on as many Australian youth investment project players who are halves such as Linnane etc and one of those investments will pay off and be ready by 2027. And who knows maybe Metcalf will buy into us making him wait until the end of the 2026 season before making him an offer. Probably he won't as I also believe his agent spruiked that $1M pay me now article but also with Luke's consent. So he, Luke, must want the money. But whatever happens we have him next year and if he is that good as you think he is we will be in the Grand Final next year.

 

[peewee]

Yeah mate but we are still dependent on them.

Sure but not the crashed one

 

[John Nick]

He does appear injury prone?
Is heeee?

I should have said he has been unlucky with injuries