Sydney Roosters head coach Trent Robinson has challenged rugby union convert winger Mark Nawaqanitawase to clean up his unforced errors.
The outside back, in his first full season as an NRL player after making the switch from rugby union, is just 12 games into his career which started in the centres, but has moved to the wing in recent weeks.
Nawaqanitawase, who moved to the wing when the Roosters finally managed to roll out a full strength back five and dropped Dominic Young as a result, has had some brilliant moments on the wing, but has also had some other horror moments.
Given Young was dropped for his errors and defensive decision making, Nawaqanitawase will be under pressure to fix that part of his game, despite some fantastic individual moments in attack which included a leaping try off a kick over opposite number Savelio Tamale during Sunday evening's loss to the Canberra Raiders.
He struggled with other errors during the game however, and not for the first time this year, having dropped a number of high balls in defence during the Canterbury Bulldogs' comeback against the Roosters a number of weeks ago.
In the same game, he scored one of the all-time great tries with a chip kick off one leg.
Robinson said the former Olympian has a choice to make.
โAt the moment, he's got a choice,โ Robinson said during his post-match press conference.
โHe's such a good player. You know, (he's) 12 games in, he's making a fair impact on the game.
โHe's (made) two yardage errors there, his choice, you know, they were both sort of unforced.
โSo, I feel like he can have a huge impact on the game just by cleaning up a bit of that backfield and then he'll become a dominant player in this competition.โ
With Young set to move to the Newcastle Knights in the next fortnight, Nawaqanitawase is not in any immediate danger of losing his spot, but will need to tidy things up with the tri-colours having plenty of young talent coming through in almost every position.
Robinson all but promised to remain patient though, suggesting Nawaqanitawase will become one of the best wingers in the competition eventually.
โHe's a quick learner and he's hurting in there because of it,โ Robinson said.
โI think he'll get that very quickly, because his technique is very good.
โThere's just a couple of slight tweaks there that he needs to do to fix that up.
โThen I hope they keep kicking to him because he is such a good catcher, but they're unforced errors at the moment, and when he stops that, then he'll be one of the better wingers in the competition.โ
