Superstar Warriors recruit Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has opened up on the conversation that lured him back to the club he won the 2018 Dally M medal with.
Tuivasa-Sheck has returned to the Warriors on a three-year contract after spending close to two years playing rugby union.
The 30-year-old has recalled the process that begun last year that’s landed him back in the NRL.
And it all begun with a conversation with coach Andrew Webster.
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“(Webster) said ‘Rog, we’re going to be a team that competes, going to be a team that turns up for each other’,” Tuivasa-Sheck said via NRL.com.
“I go ‘Webby I’ve heard this before, tell me what’s different?’.
“If you put yourself in my shoes I had been here since 2016, (we) probably had three or four coaches and different managers who had sold me the same thing — ‘we’re going to do A, B and C to get this title’… each year it goes up and then we lose that coach.”
At the time Tuivasa-Sheck had a two-year offer on the table from a Japanese rugby club, which he was seriously considering.
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But after meeting with Warriors skipper Tohu Harris and utility forward Jazz Tevaga, Tuivasa-Sheck was convinced.
It was time to come home.
“I said ‘OK, let’s sit down and have a coffee and just tell me one thing. Do I just go, go to Japan and take off and see what happens? Or do I come back, is there something (building at the Warriors)?’.
“They both looked to each other and said ‘bro, there’s something here’.
“That got me excited, so I then had another catch up with ‘Webby’ and made the decision to come back.
“Hopefully in the next couple of years something special happens.”
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The Warriors didn’t announce Tuivasa-Sheck’s deal until April, but he was all-in after that meeting with his two mates in December, 2022.
From then on he kept a close eye on the team, from the very beginning right up until their preliminary final loss — when the curtains fell on one of the club’s best seasons to date.
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“It got me excited watching the first couple of pre-season games and seeing a few different attitudes, boys wanting to defend the goal line, boys playing in yardage,” Tuivasa-Sheck said.
“I’d watch the games and kick chase, defence, goal line defence, that’s all attitude there. If you see that and see that this guy’s made a wrong decision, but his man next to him has covered for him, he’s busted his a** (to cover for his teammate), I love that.
“I want to go and compete next to players like that.”
The 20-time New Zealand international started pre-season training in November. Despite being crowned the best in the game as a fullback, he won’t be wearing the No.1 jersey next season.
After Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad’s form this year at fullback, Webster has indicated Tuivasa-Sheck will be used in the centres.