ANALYSIS: Whoever wins the Simon Mannering Medal as Warrior of the Year should share it with the crowd.
Stand-in captain Mitchell Barnett or departing prop Addin Fonua-Blake must be favourites to win the accolade at Sunday’s awards night.
But it would be entirely appropriate if they were to call up a supporters’ representative – the Mad Butcher, Sir Peter Leitch, a Pasifika drummer or the Christchurch couple that fly up to every home game – to share the limelight on centre stage.
More than any moment of rare magic – Shaun Johnson’s try assist with the last pass of his career or a Dallin Watene-Zelezniak dive for a try in the corner, the sustained support for a team that has plummeted down the NRL rankings has been the shining light of an ill-starred Warriors season.
Before the last home game against the Bulldogs at Shaun Johnson Stadium, head coach Andrew Webster was asked to single out any positives from the disappointing campaign.
He listed two – the reserve grade team’s “amazing’’ run to the New South Wales Cup playoff, and the “unbelievable fanbase”.
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Webster felt the Warriors’ ability to “sell out’’ every home game” and “the atmosphere created here’’ at Mt Smart Stadium was humbling.
“I don’t think any club has run down the ladder like we have and had that fan base.”
Webster said the Warriors had also “lifted other people’s crowds for away teams simply because of [Australia-based] New Zealanders wanting to come and support the Warriors.
“It just shows how loyal they are through tough times. I don’t think every club can say that about their fans, and I think we can.”
The numbers back Webster’s claim.
Figures published on Afltables.com – an Australian sports statistics website – suggest the Warriors have the second-highest average home crowd in the NRL – 24,608 – behind only the Broncos who draw an average of 40,308. The Warriors are ahead of minor premiers Melbourne Storm (22,155), Manly Sea Eagles (21,733) and the Dolphins (21,626). The average NRL crowd in 2024 was 19,050.
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The Warriors’ sell-out crowds trend began in 2023 when Webster’s side finished fourth and made the preliminary final, but they have held firm this term despite the drop to 13th after their last game against the Sharks.
A leading academic, who studies the NRL, believes that backing will continue because core support for the Warriors is “unwavering”.
Dr Phil Borell is a senior lecturer at the Aotahi School of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury. He completed a PhD thesis in 2022 titled ‘PolySaturated: Illuminating Polynesian Experiences in Professional Rugby League’ and is chairman of the Canterbury Rugby League.
Borell (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) says the Warriors benefit from playing in “a one-team country’’ and “almost everyone last year when they went on their run got in behind them.
“I think that’s definitely had a carry-over effect this year because everybody still wants to see them do well.”
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Borell believes the Warriors’ strong social media presence is “having a huge bearing on their fanship.
“Their ability to flood TikTok and Instagram where all the young people are, which far surpasses anything coming out of rugby union at the moment.
“If your social media presence is high and you’re creating those bite-size clips people want to engage with, even when your team is losing people are still enjoying the brand. I think that’s a big part of it.
Borell says “close to 50%” of NRL players having Māori or Pasifika heritage – and in the lower grades, Harold Matthews Cup, SG Ball etc, it goes above 50%’’.
“It tells you that, on the pathway coming through, that rugby league is Māori and Pacific game. When you look at the demographic in New Zealand, 86% of registered players are Māori or Pacific.
“But what I find interesting is the Warriors crowds don’t always look like just purely Māori and Pacific, so they’ve actually created a fan base beyond what might be your traditional rugby league supporters.”
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Borell says Super Rugby has “started, for want of a better word to plateau a little bit” and was not as “strong as the product in NRL at the moment’’, and he thought the Warriors have “inherited a lot of rugby union fans’’.
The make-up of the Warriors squad – “a lot of Māori boys, a lot of Pacific boys and a number of Australian white boys’’ – has also probably boosted the relatability.
“I guess there’s an even distribution in that team at the moment that’s probably helping with the public buy-in. I think spectators, consumers, fans, however we want to frame them, can see themselves in that team.”
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Borell says the “party central’’ factor at Warriors games also helps. He was “lucky enough to perform in the kapa haka group with my 13-year-old son’’ at the Warriors’ “home’’ game in Christchurch against the Raiders.
He says younger people are “captivated by the theatrics of the Warriors, the lights, the ceremony and things like the drums, that embedded cultural narrative they bring forward”.
Young Māori could see themselves “not just in the athletes, but in the club.
“You’ve got the motif in the clearly Māori logo, you’ve got the concept of the warrior which speaks to the physicality that a lot of young people love about the sport.”
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While Borell says retiring scrumhalf Shaun Johnson is a superstar, crowds could also relate to “cult heroes’’ like Jazz Tevaga and Bunty Afoa, South Aucklanders who had come through the junior systems in a ”rag to riches story’’.
“We love those guys. The Warriors really embody the idea that anyone can make it so kids still have this pathway, this dream of representing the Warriors because they know that other people have before them.”
Borell believes the Warriors now have a strong commercial model – including a newly-announced Full Time sports bar in Kingsland. He thinks they “could afford not to sell out every game next year and do all right’’, but he expects the support will continue.
“I don’t know if they will sell out every stadium next year, but I know the staple fan base is unwavering. We might lose some of the band wagons, some of the rugby converts, but I think it just takes one other season to really entrench that fan base. If they pick it up next year and go to the top eight, then maybe the top four, or dare to dream make the grand final, then I think the Warriors will be pretty solid for years to come.”
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Borell checked ticket sales for the NRL opening round games in Las Vegas next year where the Warriors will feature for the first time. “I think they were showing 34% of all tickets sold for the first round came from a Warriors supporters base.
“Not only are [the Warriors] selling out home games here and increasing stadium takes in Australia, we’re all the ones going over to America next year.”
Borell says this year’s slide won’t deter the fan base because Warriors supporters “live in eternal optimistic hope”, making “the whole mantra of ‘it’s our year’ exciting because the club had yet to win a title. “That potential thrill that sit there, just out of reach, is what keeps us coming back”.
And Borell believes the Warriors support vibe could be reproduced if the South Island eventually gets a NRL club, much like the “huge rivalry’’ growing between the Broncos and the Dolphins in Brisbane.