Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck celebrate a Warriors win Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz
NZ Warriors winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak may have provided the first real hint to the second-most burning question for the NRL pre-season, which begins Friday against Cronulla Sharks in Sydney.
Or he may just be playing a little trick on the media.
The truth should emerge later Tuesday, when coach Andrew Webster reveals the line-up for the first hitout.
For the past 12 months, questions over Roger Tuivasa-Sheck's position on the park have become almost a tradition at Warriors media opportunities, usually accompanied by a rolling of the eyes, as Webster explains he is determined to give his crosscode star a chance to cement his spot in the centres, where he represented the All Blacks.
Tuivasa-Sheck won the 2018 NRL Dally M Medal at fullback, but his club is already well served in that position by Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and promising understudy Taine Tuaupiki.
With a new season looming, Watene-Zelezniak has dropped the bombshell that the former club captain may have returned to his original wing designation, where he began his NRL career for Sydney Roosters.
"There's a few of us fighting for starting spots," he said. "I think Webby likes to keep it quite competitive with us and doesn't like to show this is the starting spot, but we're getting the idea now.
"The team list comes out today, and Roger's been on the wing training and training well. It's been nice running after him and I wouldn't be too surprised if he is there."
That pregnant pause is the collective media realising they have already let Webster off the hook, without asking the obvious question for once.
With incumbent Marcelo Montoya afforded an early contract release to return to Canterbury Bulldogs, there's a vacancy on the other flank, with 32-game veteran Ed Kosi another obvious candidate to fill it.
"Roger offers a lot of his experience in his chats to the whole group," continued Watene-Zelezniak. "Some of the things he can do on the wing, not many people can do, so it's definitely wise for us to pick his brains.
"We all help each other. There are things I've experienced on the wing that I've been about to talk to the others about, including Roger, but he's a professional and knows what he's doing."
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad scores a try for the Warriors Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Currently, the most burning question around the Warriors revolves around their captaincy, after incumbent Tohu Harris shockingly announced his retirement last month, unable to shake persistent injuries during the off-season. Another is the composition of the halves, with all-time leading scorer Shaun Johnson also stepping aside this year.
Those answers may also become clearer through these upcoming fixtures, before the opening round jaunt to Las Vegas to meet Canberra Raiders next month.
Webster intends fielding close to a first-choice line-up against Cronulla, rather than easing his frontliners into action.
"A couple of little niggles there, so the halves will pick themselves this week," he said. "Our four halves have been excellent all pre-season.
"What we want this week is to make sure we're a reflection of our pre-season. We don't want to turn up and be someone we haven't practice - that would be a terrible feeling as a coach or a player.
"We're going to go strong. We've had a long pre-season and we've hit each other for too long - if we had a shorter one, I don't think we would.
"We'd like to put out a decent team this week that's close to round one and see how that goes. Similar next week, but we'll just wait and see how this week goes, and what we get out of it.
"If we get a really good hitout, some of them probably won't play next week, but we feel they need a bit more, they'll play a bit more. We'll take every person on their merits afterwards."
The Warriors' only other pre-season trial will be against Melbourne Storm at Hamilton's FMG Stadium on 15 February.
