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Footage: When Roger Tuivasa-Sheck played rugby union in 2011

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images)

It’s impossible to have a conversation about the best steppers, in either code, without mentioning Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. The guy has turned the ankle breaker into an art form over the course of his eight-year career in the NRL.

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Like many Aucklanders, he grew up playing both codes and one of his earliest tastes of elite rugby came with the Blues First XV Fifteen age-grade team. He turned 27 this week and Sky Sports NZ released footage of the speedster in action against the Highlanders.

Sky NZ pondered the possibility of the mouthwatering prospect of seeing Tuivasa-Sheck playing alongside new signing Dan Carter at the Blues ‘one day’.

A return to rugby union isn’t at all far fetched for Tuivasa-Sheck. He represented the New Zealand rugby union schoolboy team before signing for the Roosters in the NRL as eighteen year old, before returning to his native Auckland with the Warriors.

He was linked with the blues in 2018, although his agent dismissed the rumours ‘as pure speculation’ after Radio New Zealand reported the switch to the fifteen-man code is “done”. Apparently there had been talks between NZR and Tuivasa-Sheck which his manager Bruce Sharrock refused to talk about.

At 27-year-old, time is starting to run out if he wanted to have a tilt at the All Blacks, with the cycle leading up to Rugby World Cup in 2023 in France realistically his last chance at a black jersey. One thing is clear, he has the talent to make it as a cross-code athlete.

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