Recruitment Warriors 2025/2026 Recruitment & Retention

Warriors 2025/2026 Recruitment & Retention Discussion​

-	Player	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029
1	Bunty Afoa	✔
2	Tom Ale	✔
3	Mitchell Barnett	✔	✔	✔
4	Rocco Berry	✔	✔
5	Tanah Boyd	✔	✔
6	Kurt Capewell	✔	✔
7	Erin Clark	✔	✔	✔
8	Wayde Egan	✔	✔	✔
9	James Fisher-Harris	✔	✔	✔	✔
10	Jackson Ford	✔	✔	✔
11	Leka Halasima	✔	✔	✔
12	Morgan Harper	✔
13	Chanel Harris-Tavita	✔	✔
14	Sam Healey	✔	✔	✔
15	Edward Kosi	✔
16	Jacob Laban	✔	✔
17	Ali Leiataua	✔	✔	✔
18	Freddy Lussick	✔	✔
19	Te Maire Martin	✔
20	Luke Metcalf	✔	✔
21	Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad	✔
22	Marata Niukore	✔	✔
23	Adam Pompey	✔	✔	✔
24	Tanner Stowers-Smith	✔
25	Taine Tuaupiki	✔	✔
26	Roger Tuivasa-Sheck	✔	✔
27	Demitric Vaimauga	✔	✔	✔	✔
28	Dallin Watene-Zelezniak	✔	✔	✔
S1	Kayliss Faitialofa	S
S2	Kalani Going	S
S3	Luke Hanson	S
S4	Eddie Ieremia-Toeava	S	✔	✔
S5	Sio Kali	S
S6	Patrick Moimoi	S
-	Kahu Capper	T	T
-	Jett Cleary	T	S	S
-	Motu Pasikala	T	✔	✔

C = Club option, M = Mutual option, P = Player option, S = Supplementary contract, T = Train & Trial contract

Confirmed Top 30 2025: 28/30
Confirmed Supplementary 2025: 6/6

Confirmed Top 30 2026: 21/30
Confirmed Supplementary 2026: 1/6

2026 Gains: Nil
2026 Losses: Nil

Off Contract: Bunty Afoa, Tom Ale, Morgan Harper, Edward Kosi, Te Maire Martin, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Tanner Stowers-Smith

---

This thread is solely for Warriors recruitment and retention discussion. Any posts not related to the above will be deleted.

Repeat offenders will have their access to this page limited.

Please be mindful of what you are posting in this thread before clicking the reply button. Zero Tolerance to offtopic chat.

 

[Playdaball]

I bet we dont have a back up recruit ... sounds like Harper all over again e.g. letting someone go and not having a 1ST Grade replacement. Please dont let Freddy back into the first team squad.

 

[BlackToko88]

Just poor all around imo. Rumors started last year, thats when they should have let him go.

Timing is just weird, name team then release. Couldve done this after Sunday especially as they are playing in Campbelltown etc.

I dont see any progression plans tbh. Just awful recruitment planning imo

 

[SJ2k]

The club is legitimately in trouble if we don't find a way to sort this out. We're just digging a deeper hole to climb out of. Massive mismanagment by the club to be this soft on releases. You can say of if a player is unhappy we should let them go, but they're going to be FAR more likely to get unhappy if they think they can just walk out of a contract whenever they want.

People have been splitting up forever, I've never seen a team including us, have to let this many players go. Need to get fucking real or we've cooked ourselves.

Players should be let go when it suits the club, or in some kind of extreme circumstance. Otherwise make them play NSW cup until their contract ends.

 

[Tookey 2.0]

Man between Tohu and Walker both moving on between the off-season and now, that's fairly catastrophic... So is he not playing this final game that he was named to play?

That's literally 1.1 mil that's opened up for next year between those two that we haven't spent, plus what ever they didn't get for this year (still probably close to 700k or so as were so early in the season) so what the heck are we going to do with that money.

Something has to be coming...anyone from Parra gunna make their way over here we reckon? Matto, Ofa, Grieg?

 

[The Truth]

Probably get Dylan Brown for 1 season

 

[MXRecord]

It's amateur hour if we dont have another player to replace him.

 

[sballer7]

Probably get Dylan Brown for 1 season

Was just about to write this.

 

[WahsaurusRex]

Not too cut up about it, Walker leaving was an inevitability.

Although it would have been ideal he left before the seasons started at all, today was the next best time to do it.

Better that, with all of the season ahead of us, than closer to the mid-year deadline when we could have been investing more time into Demitric and the like.

Not really getting the big deal about getting a replacement in this instance, as important as he is. If he played out the year its not like we were signing someone to fill his gap in 26, it was always going to be younger guys stepping in

 

[Playdaball]

To me , this sets a culture of , " if I dont like NZ , I can return to Aussie". I can understand the family caring part but if I did this at work, I would have had a replacement plan.

BTW ... thanks to Dylan - has been a great player for the Warriors.

Plus ...

This club is short of ball players and he was our #1 ball player. Likely that Healy will come in but is there an opp to play CHT at 14 (with time at 13) and TMM at 6 - radical thought but just putting it out there.

 

[JaggedJ]

Think you guys are jumping the gun on the outrage.

Probably told him (or he told us) that there's no new contract next year. Gave him a chance to secure his future elsewhere and allowed us to open up a spot for more development as our NSW Cup team has been looking very sharp to start the season.

 

[Matiunz]

There’s certainly some odd stuff going on, the amount of decent players we are letting go with nothing in return is just bizarre and as others have said after team naming is beyond weird

 

[Wahs_Ultras]

Think you guys are jumping the gun on the outrage.

Probably told him (or he told us) that there's no new contract next year. Gave him a chance to secure his future elsewhere and allowed us to open up a spot for more development as our NSW Cup team has been looking very sharp to start the season.

The real question is, who from the cup team can even fit the role Walker has filled?

 

[Playdaball]

The real question is, who from the cup team can even fit the role Walker has filled?

Ant the answer to this NOT Freddy Lussick!!!

 

[juju]

Not to be that guy - but he looked unhappy in the team song Rd 2... And I thought that was weird at the time.

To cut the guy some slack being away from your kids would be tough.

 

[The Truth]

The real question is, who from the cup team can even fit the role Walker has filled?

CHT with TM to the halves.

 

[Makasene]

We stood firm with AFB, turned to shit.

Can understand why the club would want to avoid that.

The doomsdayers are out in force, probably a deep breath is in order.

We wouldn't have JFH without compassionate release.

Keep it in perspective. We don't know what might have gone down personally. Anyone not with their kids will tell you how hard it is.

Outrage that there is a long list of players we release compassionately is overblown too...

 

[Boston Boy]

If he's not able to be 100% focused on the job because of whatever family shit he's got going on in Aus, then let him go. Thanks for your service Dylan, you'll be missed.

Sign of a good club in my opinion. I am sure the reason is genuine as there's been rumours for a while.

 

[Wahs_Ultras]

CHT with TM to the halves.

Yuck but makes the most sense

 

[hornbybrown]

CHT to 14, TMM to 6 is what I would do and really like it.

 

[Wahs_Ultras]

Not to be that guy - but he looked unhappy in the team song Rd 2... And I thought that was weird at the time.

To cut the guy some slack being away from your kids would be tough.

Yep. Looks like he tried to make it work which you have to respect him for.