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Sports correspondent & historian with |
Kiwi sports fans should salute the New Zealand Warriors in giving fans a season where they finished just one game short of reaching their third NRL Grand Final.
Last Saturday night's preliminary grand final against the Brisbane Broncos in enemy territory proved a step too far for the New Zealand side.
The Broncos stamped early authority on the game and marched to the 2023 NRL title decider, with an emphatic 42-12 win over the Warriors.
Recent weeks have seen the Australian rugby league press praise the performances of the team from over the ditch.
This was a complete turnaround from the run-up to the season kickoff, where a number of NRL press, predicted the Warriors where contenders for the wooden spoon.
A well known Sydney league website put the boot in with their Warriors season predictions. "We mentioned that the Dolphins would avoid the dreaded wooden spoon - that's because we have the Warriors to finish last".
"They have recruited plenty of players, none of whom are likely to make a massive impact. The club also have a rookie coach in Andrew Webster, an ageing playmaker in Shaun Johnson and a lack of quality depth across the park".
The Warriors opened their season in style, winning their first four from five matches in defeating the Knights, Cowboys, Bulldogs and Sharks.
Three successive losses to the Storm, Roosters and Panthers had the Warriors critics in full noise, saying that the bubble had burst and the New Zealand side were pretenders, not contenders.
A return to winning form resulted in the Warriors reaching the end of round one, with a respectable seven wins opposed to six losses.
A 36-14 thumping of the Raiders in enemy territory, kickstarted a second half of the season, that only hardened Warriors fans could imagine at season start.
Just the stains of defeat by the Rabbits and the Dolphins, in round two, propelled the Warriors to finish fourth in the regular season, with 16 victories and 8 losses.
Their fourth place finish saw them meet top qualifiers in the Panthers at Penrith, with the hosts posting a 32-6 win.
The bonus of finishing in the top four gave the Warriors a second bite of the cherry, with a sudden death encounter against Newcastle at Mt Smart.
There was plenty of conjecture on whether Shaun Johnson would play after missing the first playoff match. The Warriors pivot turned in a man of the match performance, in the 40-10 victory, that sent the Auckland based side to Brisbane to face the Broncos for a place in the 2023 NRL Grand Final.
While the Queensland sides 42-12 win ended their third NRL finals dream, players and management could look back with extreme pride on one of the best season performance in the club's twenty-nine season history.
From a personal view my standout player was Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad at fullback. His spectacular touchdown against Newcastle opened the Warriors ledger, with a further six tries being dotted down.
While Shaun Johnson was the Warriors Player of the Year, flying winger Dallin Watene-Zelezniak must have run Johnson close in the judging of the club's top award. His theatrical leaps over the try line, with his mane blowing in the wind, pumped up the Warriors fans like no other team member.
While the 2023 season scored highly with the fans - there are no guarantees that the success will continue next year.
The New Zealand Warriors showed it is possible to come from wooden spoon contention to the top four in a single season. However every other team will go into the off-season believing that their planning and rebuilding will pay dividends in 2024.
