He broke their heart, twice. But without Roger, the Warriors wouldn’t be here today
“Roger broke my heart twice. He broke my heart when he went to rugby. And he broke my heart when he went and did his knee and couldn’t play for us again.”
Warriors chief executive Cameron George could be singing a rugby league love song about Roger Tuivasa-Sheck – the magnetic, fast-stepping, light-up-a-room, humble star who won’t play another game for the club after rupturing his ACL in late May.
“Hands down, just one of the most special people I have ever met,” George adds. “The type of person you can only hope and pray comes along into your club.”
The Warriors sold 26,000 tickets for Saturday’s final against the Dolphins in around 17 minutes. Win, and they’ll shift almost twice as many for a grand final qualifier at Eden Park in a fortnight. The smart money says they’ll do it in half the time.
Thirty-one years since they were born out of rugby league’s last great rush to expand and conquer, the Warriors are better placed than ever before to assume the true powerhouse status that has seemingly always been theirs for the taking, if only they could ever get their house together long enough to do it.
In their recent rise, pivotal figures in the club’s history are prominent. From coach Andrew Webster and foundation halfback Stacey Jones to current owner Mark Robinson and retired attacking phenom Shaun Johnson.
Tuivasa-Sheck is as influential as anyone.
“Because of what Roger did for this club and this team during the COVID-19, it won’t and can’t ever be forgotten,” George says.
“When we hit rock bottom in that period, his leadership, commitment and passion during that time was just phenomenal, and he kept the club together.”
What the Warriors went through to ensure the NRL could resume on May 28, 2020, and stay afloat as a competition, has regularly and rightly been acknowledged in the years since.
Players, coaches, staff and some, but by no means all, of their families relocated across the Tasman for the best part of three seasons – from May, 2020 to late 2022.
They lived out of suitcases, in isolation, and observed strict COVID protocols in half a dozen temporary accommodation set-ups across the Australian east coast.
Robinson, the insulation magnate who tipped millions of his own money into keeping the club afloat, and George both say another six months would have pushed the Warriors into withdrawing from the competition, which would have put the NRL in breach of its agreement to deliver broadcasters eight games per week and cost it $20 million.
As Warriors captain in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Tuivasa-Sheck was a rock for his homesick teammates as border confusion reigned, families struggled, losses stacked up and coach Stephen Kearney was sacked.
George sums it up bluntly.
“As a club, we lost so much of our identity as everything eventually wore us down.”
One poignant moment, from late August 2020, stands out. Tuivasa-Sheck had spent almost four months away from his Auckland-based family at this point. A few days earlier, his youngest son had just started crawling, 2000 kilometres away.
As he played the milestone video in the Accor Stadium dressing room, Tuivasa-Sheck offered a sad smile and admitted: “Oh man, I think about going home all the time … but I’m proud that I’m here. And my family is, too, sticking it out for the club.”
‘They stuck with us when we were struggling and in Australia. You’d like to think we’re paying them back.’
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck on the Warriors’ loyal fans
Late in 2021, after a lengthy New Zealand border shutdown and almost two full seasons separated from his family, Tuivasa-Sheck did, eventually, go home.
He gave up around $250,000 to move to rugby and pursue an All Blacks Test debut, breaking George’s heart in the process.
When Tuivasa-Sheck’s return to the club in 2024 was sealed with “a handshake and a cuddle”, the Warriors were unrecognisable.
“The club is just so different,” he says. “The biggest difference is Andrew Webster obviously, as coach. And the system he’s set up with Andrew McFadden [the club’s recruitment and pathways manager], it’s built for the long haul. That’s the best thing.
“All these young forwards you’re seeing like Leka [Halasima], Jacob Laban and Demetric [Vaimauga], they’re learning what it takes to play NRL from the ages of 14 and 16. I don’t think the Warriors have ever really had that before.”
Those miserable COVID-19 years have given Tuivasa-Sheck, George and the Warriors a healthy perspective on what matters most now the sun is shining on them.
“I’ve had my time of sitting there and being disappointed by my knee injury, but that time is long gone,” says Tuivasa-Sheck, now 33 and off to Super League outfit Wakefield next year.
“No one likes to look back at COVID, do they? But when you ask about those tough periods for the club and players, what I’m proudest of is how the fans are with us and enjoying these times now.
“They deserve this success that’s coming, and I can confidently say there will be a lot of success in the future because of what the club is building. They stuck with us when we were struggling and in Australia. You’d like to think we’re paying them back.”
Ask Tuivasa-Sheck who remains from his first Warriors stint, and he can only name a few players – hooker Wayde Egan, injured winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, centre Adam Pompey and playmaker Chanel Harris-Tavita. Robinson, George, Jones and McFadden are the most prominent among the staff and club bosses.
Such is the nature of modern professional sport. And when the Warriors were carrying a significantly heavier COVID-19 load than any other club, at times losing multiple homesick players per week, it’s hardly any surprise.
“It’s crazy when you think about it that way – a whole NRL squad has been turned over in a couple of years, but the fan base has grown bigger than it’s ever been,” Tuivasa-Sheck says.
The Warriors have invested significantly and well in what they offer fans on game day, and the club’s steady rise under Webster has helped sell out 41 of their 46 home fixtures since late 2022.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” George says.
In a fair world, Tuivasa-Sheck would be playing in the qualifying final against the Dolphins on Saturday afternoon, not sidelined by an ACL tear.
But if the Warriors do go all the way, their talismanic former captain might break his boss’s heart for a third time – in the best, most deserving way.
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