Source: Radio New Zealand
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Kurt Capewell begin the final year of their current contracts with the Warriors. Andrew Cornaga/Photosport
NZ Warriors veterans Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Kurt Capewell have fended off speculation about their future with the Auckland-based club, as they prepare for the NRL season.
The 2026 campaign will begin this weekend with a pre-season hitout against Manly Sea Eagles at Napier and coach Andrew Webster confirms his two stalwarts will hit the ground running, with so many of his roster away on Māori-Indigenous All-Stars duty.
Both Tuivasa-Sheck – the club’s 2025 Simon Mannering Medal winner – and Capewell are off contract the end of this season, and this may be their last go-around at Mt Smart, although neither are giving much away.
“My head is still down in the trenches for the pre-season,” Tuivasa-Sheck, 32, insisted. “Just trying to turn up each day, each week for the grind, because everyone is so fast and I have to keep up.
“Future stuff I will get to at some stage, but I’m always putting my actions on the field and do my talking from there.”
Tuivasa-Sheck probably can’t afford to say too much about what lies in store beyond this season.
The former All Black and NZ Kiwi, now a Toa Samoa league international, has previously been connected with the rebel Rugby360 competition, which was due to begin in 2027, but has now been pushed back a year.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Apii Nicholls were Warriors male and female players of the year in 2025. Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz / Photosport Ltd 2025
The NRL threatened a 10-year ban on any player joining the exodus to the tournament, but recently backflipped, when NSW State of Origin star Zac Lomax was released from his Parramatta Eels contract, only to be caught out by the R360 postponement.
Australian Rugby League Commissioner chairman Peter V’Landys told The Daily Telegraph that the NRL would still register a new deal for Lomax for the coming season.
Tuivasa-Sheck is likely watching how all this pans out, before confirming his path forward. He has admitted R360 is an option, offering a big payday in the final years of his distinguished career, but so was an extension with the Warriors.
“I never want Roger to leave the club,” Webster said. “I think it’s similar to Tohu [Harris], Shaun Johnson… just really good dialogue between him and myself at the back end of last season.
“The season is long and he was our player of the year. If Roger has another season like that, and he wants to stay and wants to keep playing, I think it will be a no-brainer.
“At this time of year, we just let his footy do the talk. I know Roger is motivated and will do a good job.”
Capewell, 32, is in a completely different situation.
“I’ve thought about it, I just have to see how everything plays out and we’ll work it out from there,” he teased.
The Queensland Origin star has enjoyed success at almost every stop along his career, scoring a matchwinning try for Penrith Panthers in their 2021 Grand Final win over Melbourne Storm and helping Brisbane Broncos to the season climax two years later.
In his two seasons across the Tasman, the second-rower was part of a trainwreck 2024 run that failed to build on the success of the previous year, then often found himself out of position in the centres, as injuries derailed the Warriors’ hopes of a deep playoff run.
His goal for this season is straightforward..
Kurt Capewell took on a leadership role with the Warriors, after co-captain Mitch Barnett was lost to a knee injury. David Neilson/Photosport
“I want to win the comp,” he chuckled. “To be the first to do that is a chance you don’t get too often anywhere, so that’s what I want to do.”
As well as his playing ability, Capewell has taken on the role of father figure to the club’s promising brigade of back-rowers and also stepped into an unofficial leadership position, when co-captain Mitch Barnett was lost to a season-ending knee injury last season.
“I just want to do my role for the team, wherever that may be,” he said. “I want to play some of my best footy and get the wins.
“Like I said, I’m here to win a comp – that’s what my sights are set on. Obviously, there’s a lot of water to go under bridge throughout the season, but I just want to play my best footy to help the team win.”
Hopefully, if his body allows, he will bring up his 200th NRL appearance this season in a Warriors jersey.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand