Luke Metcalf was the game's first halfback right up until the moment he injured his ACL in the second half of the 2025 season.
So good was Metcalf that, even missing as many games as he did, he still finished near enough to the top of the charts in the Dally M Medal race.
For all the criticism that medal gets, that was still a monumental achievement.
If you needed any further evidence, then the way the Warriors slumped without Metcalf should have sold it for you.
Their star halfback was simply brilliant across that half, or a bit more, of a season, and his replacement Tanah Boyd, while solid, wasn't quite up to the same standards.
But he seemed shackled in the games he played. The Warriors spent too much time on the back foot in those games right through to their Week 1 finals exit at the hands of then four-time defending premiers the Penrith Panthers, and his role was reduced to kicking and managing.
Don't get me wrong, Boyd is very good at those metrics. Certainly far better than he displayed during his time at the Gold Coast Titans, where his career did little more than tread water.
But this year, the shackles have been taken off, and Boyd is the game's most in-form player right now.
He is running the ball more, leading the way off the boot, and the Warriors have enjoyed a sensational three and zero start to the year.
You only need to look at his stats. Six try assists, three tries, two games with more than 600 kicking metres while still averaging 90 running metres per game.
He has had his hands on everything with wild amounts of success.
While Boyd's arrival at the club ahead of 2025 had most expecting a halves combination of Metcalf at six, and Boyd at seven, Metcalf's surprise elevation to halfback and subsequent form made Andrew Webster look like the smartest operator in the game.
Coming into 2026, it appeared that Boyd was going to be doing little more than keeping the jersey warm for Metcalf, while Chanel Harris-Tavita was going to be the most likely five-eighth with last week's debutant Luke Hanson to breathe down his neck for the duration of the campaign, or maybe less if the form wasn't there.
But now, Harris-Tavita has been bumped down the pecking order because Boyd's form made him undroppable.
There was only one choice Andrew Webster could have made this week. Boyd at halfback, and Metcalf returning - surprisingly early it should be added from his ACL injury - at five-eighth.
It's not a foreign concept to Metcalf. It's where he played as he progressed through the ranks as a talented junior at the Cronulla Sharks, and where he started life at the Warriors.
During the final season of Shaun Johnson's career, 2024, the Warriors always looked a better side when the club legend was joined by an on again off again injured Metcalf.
So he certainly has what it takes to wear the seven, and you could even argue a season of playing at halfback will actually make him a better five-eighth.
Seeing the game through a different lens and then returning to a position where his skillset will be activated to its fullest potential should be a really good thing for Metcalf.
What is probably a little unclear is just how Boyd and Metcalf will work together.
There was a reason Webster steered away from them being the halves duo to start 2025, and while those issues might have been overcome now on the back of Boyd's form, the former Titan can't afford to go into his shell just because Metcalf is back.
Likewise, Metcalf can't afford to take over. He will be far more dangerous by not doing so, and instead popping up in support play when and where required, making each run count through quality rather than quantity, and chipping into the kicking game.
What the Warriors have is a halfback and a five-eighth, but the five-eighth has all the skills of a halfback.
It's a rare - and extremely enviable - position to be in for the Auckland-based club, and while there might be some rust for Metcalf, and teething issues while the pair get going, the fact of the matter is this is how the Warriors were expected by most to line up last year.
If they can get it right, then they could well sky rocket to having one of the best halves combinations in the game as they look to build on their exceptional three and zip start.
Friday's game at home against the Wests Tigers could tell us a lot, and may well go quite a distance towards securing the idea in Webster's mind that this will be his first-choice halves combination for the remainder of the year.
Webster has barely made a bad decision since arriving at the Warriors.
It's tough to see him starting with this one.
