Warriors star Roger Tuivasa-Sheck wins 2018 Dally M Medal
HE has always had the talent, and now Roger Tuivasa-Sheck has elevated himself alongside rugby league’s greatest players by winning the 2018 NRL Dally M Medal in dramatic circumstances.
NRL
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HANDS up all those who thought Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was mad to join the Warriors?
C’mon, be honest. There’s no shame in it.
Especially when considering how the Warriors, apart from missing the finals for six straight seasons before this one, apart from churning through five coaches in the same period and looking to have lost even its Warriorball soul, have long been the club rugby league signings go to … well, if not die then to slump terribly.
And for proof, ask Englishman Sam Tonkins. Or Super League buy Matthew Ridge.
Hell, ask Andy Platt, Kieran Foran or any of the countless other names lured to Auckland by bagfuls of New Zealand dollars.
And now, here was RTS too. Or so we thought.
Until this year. And more specifically, Wednesday night.
Unthinkable six months ago — and still unlikely with a fortnight to play, when Newcastle young gun Kalyn Ponga led the count — Tuivasa-Sheck wakes on Thursday morning as the 2018 Dally M Player of the Year.
“I’m just super proud of the club and where we’ve gone to,” Tuivasa-Sheck after the win.
“There is a lot of improvement we can take and the next step we want to take. Just proud we can take this back to Auckland and show the friends and family there.”
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Still undecided going into the final round of the season, the Warriors megastar eventually won the award on 29 points — ahead of Ponga (27), Wests Tigers halfback Luke Brooks (26) and Cronulla fullback Valentine Holmes (25).
And, sure, had Ponga not busted an ankle with two weeks to play we may be looking instead at the youngest Dally M Medallist in history.
But this isn’t a yarn about coulda, shoulda, woulda.
No, this is about the captain of a club so many favoured to run stone motherless last. A fullback who, before the season opener, was himself paying $41 for the Dally M Medal.
Yep, forty-one bucks.
Undoubtedly a decent whack, although hardly surprising when you consider how, only a season earlier, RTS had considered walking out on rugby league for the All Blacks.
And a year before that, missed almost all his first season in Auckland after suffering the one acronym even more dangerous than his own — ACL.
So again, hands up all those who thought Tuivasa-Sheck was mad to join the Warriors for the 2016 season?
Remembering how in only four seasons at the Roosters, this livewire No. 1 had already won a premiership, played in a World Cup with New Zealand and collected the 2015 Dally M Fullback of the Year and 2013 Dally M Winger of the Year awards.
Indeed, while the Roosters, as the banner says, play for premierships … well, the Warriors were often flat out playing, period.
Take last year, when they finished 13th. A season where Tuivasa-Sheck was undoubtedly the side’s best, yet still not the best incarnation of himself.
Worse, he was unhappy.
Indeed, while critics questioned if the captaincy was perhaps weighing too heavy, RTS was himself taking more than occasional glances at the All Blacks’ starting line-up — and picturing where exactly he might fit into it.
“I was getting frustrated,” Tuivasa-Sheck revealed in March this year.
“I was starting to look elsewhere because I wanted to win.
“I wanted to compete in the big stages.
“We lost a few games and we lost badly. You go home angry and you take it out on everyone else.
“I don’t think there was a time where I really regretted coming to Auckland, apart from the footy.”
And on that, he isn’t alone.
“But I had to get over myself and think about the bigger picture,” Tuivasa-Sheck added.
“I had to think about the challenge and opportunity here playing for the Warriors.”
And now, he has a Dally M Medal.
A gong that is as much a reward for persistence, and self-belief, as it is those unstoppable feet.
And what a year they had, right?
Like in Round 22 against Newcastle, when the Warriors fullback ran for a whopping 289m, made 11 tackle busts and generally killed off more Knights than The Crusades.
Here, truly, was the RTS league fans had first fallen in love with at Bondi Junction. Think lightning, a bottle and so on.
And still, his Dally M Medal proved one of the toughest ever won.
With two rounds to play, gun Knights signing Ponga led the field on 27 points — with Tuivasa-Sheck a point behind alongside Tigers halfback Brooks.
But just when it seemed the Novocastrian would become the youngest Dally M Medallist in history, a serious ankle injury rubbed him out of the final two rounds of the year.
Which left Brooks and Tuivasa-Sheck.
And so as the Tigers got pumped by South Sydney in round 25, the Warriors got home in a thriller against Canberra — with RTS taking three points.
And just like that, the Dally M Medal was his.
A fitting reward for one of the modern game’s greatest talents.
And no, his Warriors wouldn’t complete the story by making it all the way to grand final day.
But again, RTS is right in the middle of that, too.
For coming into the elimination final against Penrith a couple of weeks ago, the Warriors were firing. Looking every inch a team that had won four of its past five.
But then after only 27 minutes, and having ominously led 12-2, Tuivasa-Sheck limped from the field with a busted knee.
And hands up if you reckoned the Warriors could win it without him?
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