Recruitment Warriors 2026/2027 Recruitment & Retention

Warriors 2026/2027 Recruitment and Retention Discussion​

Player	2026​	2027​	2028​	2029​	2030​
Grant Anderson	-​	✔​	✔​	✔​
Mitchell Barnett	✔​	​
Rocco Berry	✔​
Tanah Boyd	✔​
Kurt Capewell	✔​
Erin Clark	✔​	✔​	✔​	✔​
Wayde Egan	✔​	✔​
Kayliss Fatialofa	✔​	✔​
James Fisher-Harris	✔​	✔​	✔​
Jackson Ford	✔​	✔​
Morgan Gannon	✔​	✔​	✔​
Leka Halasima	✔​	✔​	✔​	✔​
Chanel Harris-Tavita	✔​
Sam Healey	✔​	✔​
Eddie Ieremia-Toeava	✔​	✔​	✔​
Alofiana Khan-Pereira	✔​	✔​	✔​
Jacob Laban	✔​	✔​	✔​	✔​
Ali Leiataua	✔​	✔​
Jye Linnane	✔​	✔​	✔​
Te Maire Martin	✔​
Haizyn Mellars	✔​	✔​	✔​
Luke Metcalf	✔​	✔​	✔​
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad	✔​	✔​
Marata Niukore	✔​
Adam Pompey	✔​	✔​
Tanner Stowers-Smith	✔​	✔​	✔​
Taine Tuaupiki	✔​	✔​	✔​
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck	✔​
Demitric Vaimauga	✔​	✔​	✔​
William Warbrick	-​	✔​	✔​	✔​
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak	✔​	M​
Connor Bowden	U​	U​	✔​
Jett Cleary	S​	U​
Sio Kali	U​
Braelan Marsh	U​	U​	U​
Motu Pasikala	U​	U​

✔ = Signed to Top 30, C = Club option, M = Mutual Option, P = Player option, S = Signed to supplementary list, U = Unclear

2026 Top 30: 29/30
2026 Supplementary: 2/6

2027 Top 30: 22/30
2027 Supplementary: 0/6

2027 Gains: Grant Anderson (Brisbane Broncos), William Warbrick (Melbourne Storm)
2027 Losses: Mitchell Barnett (Brisbane Broncos), Marata Niukore (Newcastle Knights), Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (Wakefield Trinity)

Off contract and free to sign elsewhere for 2027: Rocco Berry, Tanah Boyd, Kurt Capewell, Chanel Harris-Tavita, Te Maire Martin
Will be off contract and free to sign elsewhere for 2028 from November 1st, 2026: Jett Cleary, Wayde Egan, Kayliss Fatialofa, Jackson Ford, Sam Healey, Eddie Ieremia-Toeava, Ali Leiataua, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Motu Pasikala, Adam Pompey, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak

 

[CWC]

Is it just that easy to rip up a contract with 2 years left to play out? Making it sound like there are clubs who are willing to pay more than 900k for metcalf, but for some reason none who are willing to pay more than 700k for boyd or cht? Seems like a lot of posters feel like they can "Have their cake and eat it too".

Freight and minimize the hit if we have to choose. I prefer to keep all 3. Most of our expensive signings are leaving end of the year

Edit: or “compassion release” and con another aussie player

 

[Ryno 2.0]

Freight and minimize the hit if we have to choose. I prefer to keep all 3. Most of our expensive signings are leaving end of the year

Edit: or “compassion release” and con another aussie player

Ah I like this compassionate release for the Warriors fan base!

 

[3rdstriker]

Metcalf was clutch as fuck

Was? Let Metcalf ease his way back in slowly while his career is on a knife edge.

 

[roguei]

3 scenarios to think about:

1. Metcalf reaches potential and is injury free for the next 2-3 years = Money well spent!

2. Metcalf continues to have injuries, next 2-3 years he plays half a dozen games = Worst decision ever, probably costs us 1-2 key players. This is the more likely one unfortunately that I see.

3. Metcalf because of consistent injures medically retires. = probably the best outcome for the club, money freed up can then be spent immediately

Now I’m not sure if the Warriors management have any specific clauses in the contract but surely they would have had to think about those things knowing the injury history??

Happy to be proven wrong. But by the looks of it they were happy to take the gamble that'd he'd come good by the end of this year/start of next year. As ACLs may heal in 7-11 months, but the player themselves will not be 100% till much later. At least as far as luke kerry is concerned as someone who snapped two ACLs.

But i'd assume they were hoping for 1. Gambing that he'd have a great season or two. I doubt number 3 happens before the end of the season unless he has a major head injury. But if KP, Turbo and Latrell are still playing. I cannot imagine metcalf would retire unless he loses hunger for the game like papenhuyzen.

So i guess like @CWC put it, to eat the risk now we'd have to pay for him to leave. And therefore, how much would the boyd signing and metcalf payout be worth?

 

[CWC]

Just saw timoko score.

Maybe Cappy’s betting on Berry getting to at least playable shape?

Ali/GA/Pompey if GA is also first wing cover we’re probably a centre short, Berry should be cheap if he can get on the field either cup or FG

 

[BabylonPink]

I'd like to think the major difference between Met and Tanah are how hard they hit the ball running, how deep they go into the line and how laterally they play.
+ Defence and linesoeed
Everything else is pretty parity.

Tanah hits the ball faster more often and plays deeper.
Met plays more laterally and can put people to sleep with tempo then footwork them.

 

[WAH MAN]

i still think that the best version of boyd this season is more useful to the team than the best version of metcalf last season. direction, kicking and tempo controlling. Boyd is making everyone around him look better, but individually metcalf looked better. if that makes sense.

Your point is great. Where I differ in my opinion is that while Boyd '26 is better than Metcalf '25, I believe Warriors '26 are better than Warriors '25.

And while Boyd this year is better than Metcalf last year, we don't yet know if Metcalf '26 will be better Metcalf '25 or Boyd '26.

And if Boyd blows a knee or ankle at any point this year, Metcalf would be the ideal next man up in my thoughts. Not to demote him.

 

[Viking]

So which position is..

TBH his hamstrings will always plague him and the ground he would have to cover at fullback would eventually destroy them.

Turbo will never last through a whole season playing at fullback. Latrell Mitchell won't either. Both can prolong their careers playing centre. Roger Fabri told me that Turbo would get hamstring problems because of his running style, probably a year before Turbo started to break down on a regular basis.

A good SnC said to me recently that the best way to prevent hamstring injuries is sprinting and the most common way to injure your hamstring is also sprinting.

 

[Tokyo Warrior]

Metcalf in the centers next!

 

[sydneywarrior92]

The clutch plays from Mets for me are a double edged sword.

Mets was clutch because he had to be. We were winning the ruck most weeks last year. But when Mets was the organising half, we were never able to convert that ruck dominance into healthy leads, putting us in heart attack situations where him being clutch was the difference between winning and losing every week. That was true against both the shit teams and premiership contenders. We were literally tempting fate every week with him as the 7.

With Boyd, we have the opposite problem: no doubt he isn't as clutch. But we are hardly ever being put into those clutch situations because his methodical approach is always putting the result to bed well before the final quarter. Once we win the ruck, we are genuinely slaying teams now in ways that we struggled to do under Mets. Our attack is looking a lot better organized and we are back to running sling shot plays with DWZ/AKP scoring in the corner again like we were in 23 when SJ was running everything. We are either 1st or 2nd best team in most attacking stats and we are literally playing like the 2nd best team behind Penrith atm.

We will win many more games under Boyd's controlled approach imo. But the issue comes how he responds to situations where clutch is needed. That's where the Newcastle game from last year worry me. He kind of broke down and got bailed out by Leka's freakish play. Mets probably nails the kick and gets us that win without needing Leka's play.

IMO we need both. Boyd's approach gets us to the GF but Mets is the sort of player that wins us the GF. I don't think we can get to or win a premiership with only one of them. So I'm still of the view that Mets/Boyd combo is the one with the highest ceiling as Fonzie mentioned in his podcast. I just wish the two of them could get into a room and work it all out.