Roger Tuivasa-Sheck: What’s behind the shock move back to the Warriors?

Photo: PHOTOSPORT

Analysis – RTS is gone. Or back – depending on whether you’re a fan of the Blues or the Warriors. Or staying put, as most Aucklanders count themselves as followers of both teams.

The news that Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has decided to make the trip back down to Mt Smart after three years, three All Black tests and an awful lot of scrutiny in rugby isn’t exactly the biggest surprise, but the timing certainly is.

The biggest question is just who might have been in his ear, though.

The conventional wisdom was that Tuivasa-Sheck would know where he stood with the All Blacks near the end of Super Rugby, which would then shape his future career choices. In making that switch now, a couple of things can be gleaned from just what sort of feedback he was getting.

Tuivasa-Sheck ended up being Ian Foster’s project, after a promising but mainly solid season for the Blues saw them fall short at the final Super Rugby Pacific hurdle to the Crusaders. It was generally thought that with the benefit of some provincial rugby, the fullback-turned-midfielder would be in good shape to be picked for the end of year tour to Japan and the UK.

Except Foster had other ideas and pulled the trigger early. It didn’t go according to plan – Ireland came down and handed the All Blacks a series loss on home soil, so Tuivasa-Sheck was denied the sort of easy introduction to test rugby that a lot of others got. A late introduction to proceedings in the Wellington match, won decisively by the Irish, meant he was trying to salvage a hopelessly lost cause.

Photo: Photosport Ltd 2020

Tuivasa-Sheck wasn’t seen again in an All Black jersey till the second Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park, which again told us little about his test match credentials given that he came on for the last 10 minutes again in a game that had already been decided – at least this time in the All Blacks’ favour.

Then he was finally given his chance in a starting jersey against Japan, by then looking exactly where his test rugby journey should have started anyway.

Again, it didn’t go to plan. While Japan aren’t the easy-beats they used to be, the All Blacks struggled mightily in an eventual 38-31 win and Tuivasa-Sheck had none of the room he needed to make an impression.

That may well be the last time he ever wears a black jersey – at least one without a white V on the front of it. It’s highly unlikely this news would have come through without some sort of indication from the All Black coaching staff, a group that will change dramatically next year anyway.

Who knows if Tuivasa-Sheck entered Scott Robertson’s thinking, but it’s a moot point anyway.

But really, while a lot of what’s happened is just down to bad luck (Tuivasa-Sheck has been injured an awful lot, including at the time his switch back to league was confirmed) and bad management (Foster clearly didn’t have much of a plan for him, or at least one that went out the window when Jordie Barrett took over at second five), the biggest missed opportunity with Tuivasa-Sheck has been how little both the Blues and All Blacks have used him to front the media.

He truly is the local boy made good, charismatic and humble, with a backstory that includes an NRL Premiership and Dally M Medal. Why he was so stridently hidden away from the cameras is anyone’s guess, but at least it tracks with rugby’s often-baffling self-imposed restrictions on promoting itself.

That’s unlikely to be the case back at the Warriors. It’s been a long time since they made such a splash in the transfer market, probably since they signed Tuivasa-Sheck in the first place back in 2016.

Which brings us to the other man who may well have been having a word with Tuivasa-Sheck. The Warriors have had a dream start to the 2023 season, which meant that it probably wasn’t as much of a tough sell for Andrew Webster if he’d got on the phone to the club’s prodigal son.

Webster has earned high plaudits from his players for the culture he’s created at Mt Smart, but really that is the icing on the cake that is regular wins and big home crowds.

This is welcome news, at least in a week when Super Rugby is dishing up another half-cooked slate of games and the Warriors aren’t playing till next Tuesday. But it is somewhat ironic that Tuivasa-Sheck is going back to exactly where he came from, now that the Warriors have after three frustrating years based in Australia thanks to Covid-19.

Maybe that’s what he wanted all along.