Confidence key as Metcalf cements No.7 credentials

Being a sponge around Daly Cherry-Evans and Shaun Johnson means Luke Metcalf is confident – and firing – as the Warriors No.7.

Metcalf is going from strength to strength this season and his player of the match game against North Queensland Cowboys further showed he belongs.

As well as being instrumental in attack, scoring two tries; Metcalf also produced a match-winning, try-saving tackle on Murray Taulagi when the Cowboys were coming home strong.

“It was really easy to play off the platform that the forwards laid for me and the outside backs … the way that they carried in the first half,” Metcalf said.

“We probably won the game in the first half with our attack and then defensively those last 20 minutes of the second half probably won us the game.

“It was cool to see that under that sort of pressure we can hold up our gloves and be resilient and come away with the win.”

The new dad said he was proud of his try-saving tackle, one Warriors coach Andrew Webster described as the biggest moment in the game.

“We just have each other’s backs regardless of if a line break is made down the left, down the right, down the middle… we pride ourselves on having each other’s backs... we just want to turn up for each other, so I was just doing what I had to do really,” Metcalf said.

“(Murray is) a big human. Yeah, he’s a big dude. He played pretty well… we saw he finished that other one, early in the game… he’s a freak. It was pretty cool to be able to stop him.”

The 26-year-old owns the No.7 jersey with the self-belief of someone with years’ more experience and credits that to excellent mentors over the years including Cherry-Evans and Johnson, as well as putting in the hard work.

“You’ve just got to have confidence in yourself,” Metcalf said.

“I’ve had Daly Cherry-Evans and Trent Hodgkinson when I was at Manly, I came to Cronulla and had Shaun Johnson, Chad Townsend, Matt Moylan, then went to Warriors and had Shaun again.

“I’ve just had a lot of good mentors to learn off and I’ve been probably to the point of annoying … I’ve been a sponge, asking them that many questions about it because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do in my career, step into that No.7 jersey.

“I feel like when I did get the chance to be able to do that, I was ready. And there was no question in my mind that I was ready to do it.

“I put the credit down to being a sponge as a young kid and just learning and just having confidence in myself.”

Metcalf said the work ethic of Cherry-Evans and Johnson’s mind were inspirational and set the platform for him.

“From Chez, just his work ethic. That was something that stuck out to me as an 18-year-old kid at Manly,” Metcalf said.

“He would grab me and say ‘we’re practising 40/20s today, we’re practising field goals today, we’re practising this today’… he was awesome and saying ‘we’re doing this, we’re doing that’. He was just so good like that,” Metcalf said.

“Shauny, it was just mental stuff around the game and thinking about how you can manipulate defence in certain ways that I didn’t think about before.

“I didn’t think of the game like that. To be able to be sitting in meetings with him and the way he talks and I’d be ‘wow, I wasn’t even thinking of that’. It has been pretty cool.

“Everyone saw what he could do with his feet – the stepping, the running and how fast he was, but probably something he didn’t get credit for probably until the back end of his career was his footy nouse and his footy IQ.

“He’s probably one of the most complete halfbacks to ever play the game. He can run, step, pass, kick, penalty goals, field goals… he can do anything.

“It was awesome to pick his brain over those few years. I’m so lucky to have him in my corner.”

Metcalf, who also registered four out of five conversions, one penalty goal, 164 run metres, two line breaks, seven tackle breaks in the game against the Cowboys, said the Warriors as a whole were only improving.

“I think that’s exciting,” Metcalf said.

“We’ve seen glimpses of 40-minute performances, or 50, 60-minute performances… imagine when we put together an 80-minute performance.

“I love that, that we’ve got that mindset of chasing perfection.

“We’re never going to get there, but to have that attitude, I think that’s the right attitude, to chase perfection. As close as we can get to that, that’d be good.”