Get ready to crack a smile Wahs fans.
Star halfback Luke Metcalf has revealed his recovery from a serious ACL injury is going perfectly to plan as he plots an NRL return for early in the 2026 season.
Appearing on the UNSCRIPTED podcast with Josh Mansour, the 26-year-old was upbeat about his post-surgery rehab, explaining he’s already back running and doing agility work.
“The recovery is going good, no complaints, I couldn’t want it to go any better really,” Metcalf said.
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“Obviously it’s a slow process and you feel like you want to get going pretty early, but I’m running now and doing some agility stuff,” he added.
“Me and Mitch Barnett (who also suffered an ACL injury last season) kept training for a week after the grand final, that got us to a point were we could go off on our own and tick some boxes, then when we come back around November 20 it will be all systems go.”
Metcalf’s 2025 campaign came to an abrupt and devastating end in Round 17 when he ruptured his right anterior cruciate ligament against the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium.
“The moments after it happened in the sheds were pretty tough, I feel like I knew I’d done it (ACL) but in mind mind I tried to push that down and tell myself ‘no, you haven’t’,” he recalled.
“I just lay there crying for a bit and Webby (Warriors head coach Andrew Webster) and our CEO came in and they just hugged me for 15 minutes, we didn’t say anything.
“I gave myself two days to be down in the dumps, but when I saw my partner who came over from Sydney, that made me feel a bit better.
“Then I just flicked the switch, ‘it’s time to get on with it’.”
As for when the star halfback will be ready to make his much-awaited return to the field for the Warriors?
“They usually say about nine months (for ACL injuries) and nine months is about Round 6 I think, so in my mind that’s what I’m aiming for,” Metcalf said.
“Right now I couldn’t ask it to go any better so hopefully I’m on that timeline—but as long as I’m right for the back end of the season, that’s what I care most about, especially after missing it this year.
“I was pretty jealous watching the boys run around in the finals.”
Metcalf explained one of his key motivations for signing a two-year extension with the Warriors until the end of 2028 was the desire to help the club claim its first-ever NRL premiership.
“There was a lot of talk (in the media that he may leave the Warriors), but when you really knuckle down and look into things it was an easy decision,” he said.
“I’d been handed the keys when Shaun (Johnson) left, I’d always wanted to be halfback in the NRL and for Webby to give me that opportunity, to have that belief in me, to let me go out and play my game, it was a no- brainer for me to stay.
“I’d love nothing more than to be the halfback to lead the Warriors to their first NRL premiership.”