State of Origin forwards Mitchell Barnett and Kurt Capewell are confirmed starters for the One New Zealand Warriors in tonight’s round 20 NRL match against the Raiders at GIO Stadium in Canberra (8.00pm kick-off local time; 10.00pm NZT).
They’ll line up in a side as selected 1-17 with centre Moala Graham-Taufa named as 18th man an hour before kick-off.
Barnett and Capewell were opponents less than 48 hours ago as New South Wales beat Queensland 14-4 to clinch the 2024 Origin series.
The 30-year-old Barnett became the first Warriors player to debut for the Blues and only the club’s second New South Wales Origin representative after Ryan Hoffman.
On the field for 48 minutes, he was impressive finishing with 11 runs for 73 metres and 30 tackles without a miss.
The Longhorns had a solid season last year recording an overall record of 12-2, winning the Big 12 conference and making it to the college football playoffs before falling to the Washington Huskies in the national semifinal.
Longhorns star quarterback Quinn Ewers is returning for his final season, along with backup quarterback Arch Manning. Offensive lineman Kelvin Banks is returning for his junior season and appeared for his first conference media days. Banks is among the top offensive lineman in the country.
After the success of last season and the hype around joining the SEC, the target is on their back. It would be easy for the team to feel pressure either from their playoff season or from entering a new conference, but they have a different perspective on it.
“I wouldn’t say pressure, I would say just more excitement more than anything because we really try to look at it like one week at a time just accomplish the mission one week at a time because like last year, when we lost to Oklahoma, we’re looking forward to a little bit of time off from a bye week. When we lost to Washington it’s like we’re looking forward to going to Houston and playing in a national championship. So we’re really focusing on just just being where our feet are,” quarterback Quinn Ewers said.
Oklahoma is also new to the SEC, and similar to Texas they had a good season last year going 10-3 and finishing 3rd in the Big 12. But most importantly, they won the Red River Rivalry over Texas.
