This Sunday, before New Zealand takes on either Australia or India in cricket’s World Cup final, the New Zealand Warriors will celebrate their 20th anniversary when they take on the Brisbane Broncos at Mount Smart Stadium.
It was in that year when they became one of four teams to be admitted into Australia’s premier rugby league competition, which for that season was rebranded as the Australian Rugby League.
The other three clubs that joined the competition that year were the North Queensland Cowboys, the WA Reds and the South Queensland Crushers. Of the four clubs that joined the competition that year, only the Warriors and Cowboys have managed to survive, along with 14 other clubs, into the present-day National Rugby League.
On March 10, the Auckland Warriors, as they were then known, played their inaugural premiership match against the Broncos, who had already won two titles after they themselves had entered the competition in 1988.
In front of a crowd of 29,220 at Mount Smart Stadium, the Warriors fought bravely and threatened to pull off a huge upset before Wayne Bennett’s men came back to record a 25-22 victory.
The club, then coached by John Monie and captained by Dean Bell, didn’t have to wait long to win their first match, when they did so against the Western Suburbs Magpies at the same venue a fortnight later.
However, the win came at a cost after the club was revealed to have unknowingly exceeded the interchange limit in that match; this blunder would ultimately cost them a finals berth at the end of the season.
Also that year, arguably the club’s greatest player in Stacey Jones made his first-grade debut against the Parramatta Eels at Leichhardt Oval, scoring a try and kicking a goal as the Warriors won their first professional match in Australia.
Ultimately, the club would win 13 and lose nine matches in its debut season, but the aforementioned interchange blunder would cost them a finals berth, the club finishing 10th out of 20 teams.
It wasn’t until 2001 that the club would make its first finals series, but not before they underwent an overhaul of their brand. This included changing their name from “Auckland Warriors” to “New Zealand Warriors” (a name it carries to the present day) and changing their primary colours to black and grey.
In their first finals match, the club went down heavily 56-12 to a Parramatta Eels side that was clearly the standout team that season, despite eventually going on to lose the grand final to the Newcastle Knights.
2002 saw the club scale to new heights, with coach Daniel Anderson leading the side to its first minor premiership courtesy of a final round win over the Wests Tigers at home, overtaking the Knights, who started that round in first place but lost their final regular season match to the St George Illawarra Dragons.
After defeating Canberra 36-20 at a sold-out Ericsson Stadium in the qualifying final, then defeating the Cronulla Sharks 16-10 in the subsequent preliminary final, the Warriors advanced to their first grand final – against the Ricky Stuart-coached Sydney Roosters.
While the match was well known for the pre-match entertainment that never was (when a Billy Idol performance had to be aborted due to a power outage), the match itself saw the Warriors take it up to the Chooks for three quarters, before the latter’s class told as they ran out eventual 30-8 winners.
Another finals appearance followed in 2003, when they lost to eventual premiers the Penrith Panthers in the preliminary final, before the club bottomed out in the ensuing three years.
During this period, the club secured the services of Ruben Wiki from the Canberra Raiders and Steve Price from the Bulldogs, but their acquisition of the former came at a cost as the club was found to have cheated the salary cap in signing him.
As a result, the club were docked four competition points prior to the start of the 2006 season, which was to be former player Ivan Cleary’s first as head coach after he took over from Tony Kemp at the end of the 2005 season.
As was the case in 1995, when an interchange blunder in their first ever win cost them two premiership points and a finals berth in their first season, the four docked premiership points would also cost the club their place in September, with the club finishing 10th and missing the finals for a third consecutive season (they would have finished eighth without the penalty).
It was during that season that the club recorded its biggest ever victory, a 66-0 thumping of wooden spooners South Sydney.
The following year saw a return to the finals, but after finishing fourth at the end of the regular season with 13 wins, ten losses and a draw, the club crashed out in straight sets following losses to the Parramatta Eels and fellow 1995 entrants the North Queensland Cowboys.
Twelve months later, the club would make history in the finals, becoming the first eighth-placed side to win its qualifying final under the former McIntyre system when they upset the first-placed Melbourne Storm at Olympic Park Stadium 18-15.
They would then proceed to knock the Sydney Roosters out of the finals in front of an all-black Mount Smart Stadium before eventually succumbing to the eventual premiers, the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, in the preliminary final.
A mediocre 2009 season followed, with the club finishing third-last on the ladder and club legend Stacey Jones making an ill-fated comeback after a stint in the Super League with the Catalan Dragons.
However, the club were back in the finals twelve months later, and after finishing fifth at the end of the regular season, they were knocked out in the first round of the finals by the Gold Coast Titans.
The 2011 season saw the Warriors advance to its second ever grand final, but not before the club started the season with three straight losses, had to deal with the news that their coach Ivan Cleary was to leave for Penrith at the end of the season and were thumped 40-10 by the Brisbane Broncos in their first finals match.
That heavy loss exposed a major flaw in the McIntyre system, leading to the NRL reverting back to the previous finals system.
Nevertheless, the Warriors bounced back from that loss to the Broncos by knocking the Wests Tigers out in the semi-finals. They went on to upset the minor premiers, the Melbourne Storm, in the preliminary final at AAMI Park.
It earned them a place in the decider against the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, and despite heading into the match as underdogs against the more experienced Sea Eagles, the club gained some support from the Sydney fans who wanted to knock the Eagles.
Eventually, the Warriors lost 24-10. Whereas the 2002 grand final was Ivan Cleary’s last match as a player, this grand final was to be his last as head coach of the club. The Warriors have failed to make the finals in the three completed seasons since.
This weekend both the Warriors and Broncos will look to continue their impressive early-season form at Mount Smart Stadium, the very same venue as their historical clash twenty years ago, this Sunday afternoon.
After both clubs dropped their season-opening matches to the Knights and Rabbitohs respectively, both won their last two matches and now sit seventh and ninth respectively on the ladder entering Round 4.
As a matter of fact, both clubs were impressive in defeating the Eels and Cowboys, respectively, at home last week. The Broncos romped to their biggest win over their northern cousins since 2008 with a 44-22 victory.
The Warriors’ first half against Parramatta was the catalyst for a 29-16 victory.
The Warriors will be without fullback Sam Tomkins for up to six weeks after he injured his knee against the Eels, sabotaging the club’s chances of celebrating their 20th anniversary with a win this Sunday.
But the club can take heart from the last time that they played an anniversary match against the Broncos, way back in Round 16, 2005.
They snapped the Broncos’ 10-match winning streak with a 30-18 victory at Mount Smart Stadium and were one of just two teams (the other being the St George Illawarra Dragons) to beat the Broncos twice that regular season.
While the Warriors’ lifespan has doubled since that match, the club will be hoping to emulate that performance in front of their home fans this Sunday afternoon before the national cricket team attempts to win the Cricket World Cup for the first time.
The match will be televised on Channel Nine at 12:00pm AEST and will precede the network’s telecast of the Cricket World Cup final, which will be contested between the Kiwis and either one of Australia or India, who clash in the other semi-final at the SCG on Thursday, at the MCG.
It thus makes for a compulsive nine hours (or so) in front of the television screen this Sunday.
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