New Zealand Warriors - 2009
The Warriors' spiral in 2009 was underpinned by unimaginable tragedy.
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The Warriors’ blistering finish to the previous season and New Zealand’s subsequent World Cup triumph sent hype around the club’s prospects into overdrive as the calendar flipped over into 2009. The return of prodigal son Stacey Jones and arrival of Brisbane tyros Denan Kemp and Joel Moon, Queensland Origin forward Jacob Lillyman and late-blooming Hamilton-born prop Jesse Royal only enhanced the Warriors’ premiership dark horse claims.
But on January 4 – the day before the players returned from the Christmas break – tragedy rocked the club to its core.
Burgeoning back-rower/centre Sonny Fai, who had been named in both the Kiwis’ and Samoa’s World Cup train-on squads in 2008, took a spontaneous late-afternoon trip with his siblings and extended family to Te Henga (Bethells Beach).
The 20-year-old Fai put himself through a session running up and down the infamous Bethells sand dunes, already a torturous feature of Warriors pre-season training, before making a fateful decision to cool off in the unforgiving West Coast ocean.
Sonny, his 13-year-old brother Gillesbie and their cousins became caught in a rip. After a frantic struggle, all except Gillesbie managed to make it back to safety. Sonny swam back out to rescue his brother but the pair were sucked further out to sea.
After being kept afloat by Sonny, Gillesbie miraculously emerged 50 metres along the beach. But Sonny never resurfaced. A search and rescue operation failed to detect any sign of him and he was presumed drowned. Sonny died a hero but his body was never found.
The NRL community rallied around the heartbroken, shellshocked Warriors. Tributes and condolences flooded in for the charismatic, incredibly talented, universally popular Fai. As the club grieved, players returned to the beach for weeks afterwards in hope of finding their mate, desperately seeking closure.
Remembering Sonny
‘Sonny was a special talent as a footballer and touched everyone at the Warriors. He loved life, loved football and loved to train.’ – Stacey Jones, writing for Rugby League Week in February 2009.
“He’d still be (at the Warriors). I don’t think we’d ever let him go. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was captain.” – Jerome Ropati, January 2018 (NZ Herald).
“He was just such a big personality…I can still see him laughing, hear him laughing. That’s just my everlasting memory of him. It didn’t matter what was happening – good, bad or indifferent – he would end up laughing somehow. He was very humble, he had a lovely nature, got on with everybody, was really keen to learn.” – Ivan Cleary, January 2018 (NZ Herald).
Inevitably, Fai’s death had a shattering effect on the Warriors’ NRL campaign. Fai was poised for a breakout year and left a sizeable hole in the club’s injury-ravaged roster and took an immeasurable toll on his heavy-hearted teammates off the field. A season that promised so much ultimately garnered just seven wins and a bottom-three finish.
“You can’t say that’s the only reason we didn’t perform but it certainly had a pretty big impact on a lot of the guys,” Micheal Luck says.
“The first few rounds we played on emotion and it all started to catch up with some people towards the back end. For a lot of guys it was their first experience with tragedy like that.
“Ivan (Cleary), and Donny Mann, our football manager, were terrific; John Hart had a pretty big influence on how we got through it, especially in the early weeks after Sonny passed away.
“I was closest of all those young guys to Simon (Mannering), a guy who rarely showed any emotion, and [I could see] the impact it had on him. It was a really tough period. There’s no textbook way to deal with that – I think we did an OK job as a club. But you can’t deny it had an effect on how we played that year.”
Gains: Lewis Brown (Wests Tigers); Liam Foran (Melbourne), Stacey Jones (Retirement), Denan Kemp (Brisbane), Jacob Lillyman (North Queensland), Joel Moon (Brisbane), Jesse Royal (Newcastle).
Losses: Ruben Wiki (retired), Logan Swann (retired), Wairangi Koopu (Melbourne), Sonny Fai (deceased), Epalahame Lauaki (Hull FC), Grant Rovelli (North Queensland), Ryan Shortland, Michael Crockett, Michael Witt (all released).
In recruiting Jones and Moon, the understated reliability halves trio Grant Rovelli, Michael Witt and Nathan Fien provided in three straight seasons of progress was apparently disregarded by the club – all three were gone by mid-season. Rovelli was released back to the Cowboys, Witt made a short-lived code switch with the Otago Rugby Union in March after being told he was not part of Cleary’s first-grade plans and Fien was allowed to join the Dragons.
Initially it appeared the Warriors could channel the sentiment and inspiration surrounding Fai’s death into something special on the paddock. Opening the season with a win for just the fourth time in 15 seasons (and the last time until 2017), they marked Steve Price’s 300th premiership match – two days after his 35th birthday – by holding off Parramatta 26-18 in front of a 20,102-strong home crowd. The players wore black armbands, while their jerseys were embroidered with Fai’s signature.
Jones’ comeback was delayed by injury but he made a stunning return off the bench against Manly at Brookvale Oval in Round 2. The Warriors trailed the defending premiers 10-0 early and 24-16 with 12 minutes left. Jones – playing in the NRL for the first time in 1,303 days – wound back the clock.
A brilliant chip-and-regather sparked a 70-metre try finished off by Brent Tate. ‘The Little General’ then bombed for Ropati’s 78th-minute equaliser. Kemp drilled the match-winning conversion from out wide and the 26-24 result prompted betting agencies to install the Warriors as the new title favourites.
The comedown was swift and severe.
Strike centre Tate was ruled out for the season with a torn ACL – the second of his career – in a 26-10 loss to Brisbane in Round 3. With Price, Lance Hohaia and Manu Vatuvei also sidelined, the Warriors went down narrowly to Souths (in a home game dedicated to Fai’s memory) and Newcastle over the ensuing fortnight.
Jones’ genius underpinned another miraculous comeback win in Round 6. The Warriors trailed the Roosters 16-0 after what Ivan Cleary described as “the worst half of football I’ve seen in four years” before the halfback talisman opened his side’s account with a try and laid on two more for Ropati and Vatuvei with inch-perfect kicks. Jones iced a 17-16 triumph by calmly potting a field goal in golden point.
Six days later the Warriors again staged a second-half rally to force their opponents into extra-time, running down the Storm in the first of what would become an annual Anzac Day fixture in Melbourne. But video referee Tim Mander disallowed Lance Hohaia’s field goal in the final minute of golden point after picking up a Jones knock-on at the play-the-ball.
Hard Luck
Back-row workhorse Micheal Luck rewrote the record books with an unprecedented tally of 74 tackles in the Warriors’ 90-minute slugfest with Melbourne. The ex-Cowboy was the NRL’s most prolific tackler for the third successive year in 2009. In a difficult year, the popular lock was a model of consistency, winning the club’s Player of the Year award, and captained the side in all 10 games Price missed.
The Warriors held a share of eighth spot at that stage but won only five of their remaining 17 games. Uncharacteristically, stagnant offence was the root of their run of outs. They won every game where they scored more than 22 points – the problem was that happened just five times. The Warriors posted an average of 15.7 points per game, the lowest in their history.
A lack of continuity in the halves hampered their attack. Jones played alongside five different five-eighths, with Moon (10 games) – who fell well short of expectations in the pivot role and was retrenched to centre – his most regular partner. Benched New Zealand Test halfback Fien was granted a release to join the competition-leading Dragons at the end of June.
FAST FACT: Prior to his mid-season departure to the Dragons, utility Fien became the 13th player to bring up 100 first-grade appearances for the Warriors. Ropati, Mannering and Evarn Tuimavave also brought up the century milestone in 2009.
For the most part, Cleary could take pride in his team’s defensive steel. Despite landing 14th, they conceded fewer points than in 2008, while they held Wests Tigers and the Knights scoreless in the space of three games (after managing the feat just three times in their first 14 seasons). The 14-0 shutout of Benji Marshall’s Tigers at Mount Smart in Round 12 also heralded the NRL debut of under-20s whiz Kevin Locke, who scored two of the Warriors’ three tries from the wing.
Cut-price Kemp stalls after Auckland move
In May 2008, the Warriors announced the signing of promising Brisbane winger Denan Kemp on a two-year deal. Two days later the 21-year-old produced an unforgettable four-try haul against Parramatta and finished a breakout year for the Broncos with 19 tries – the Warriors had secured their man just before his asking price would have gone through the roof. To his credit, Kemp declined Wayne Bennett’s offer to step in and help keep him in Brisbane, instead honouring his agreement with the Warriors. But the sea change was ill-fated. Kemp scored just one try in 10 games before losing his first-grade spot to rookie Locke. “I didn’t play very well at the Warriors and it kind of felt like I wasn’t appreciated much there,” Kemp lamented in 2015. “I was always like ‘the other winger’ and every single one of their plays was going to Manu (Vatuvei).” The Gold Coast product’s on-field struggles were compounded by homesickness and he eventually sought a release to return to the Broncos. “I remember a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, he’s getting paid all this money and he hasn’t delivered’, but I was getting paid nothing big at all. The squad was awesome. I had a lot of shit going on off the field. The boys were really close and they were really good people that wanted to help if they could. It’s something that I do regret, not giving the boys a better version of me. The frustrating thing was I loved Auckland…the people were so welcoming and so nice, but the weather killed me. When I got back [to Brisbane] I had this knot untie in my chest.” But a flying start to his Broncos return in 2010 was derailed by injury and he retired in 2013, aged just 26. Kemp started the popular video podcast The Locker Room two years later, interviewing dozens of NRL stars and other athletes, which later developed into the Bloke in a Bar media empire.
But the rigours of a fruitless, emotionally draining campaign ultimately corroded the Warriors’ resolve. They conceded 29 points or more six times in the last seven rounds. Dally M Medal winner Jarryd Hayne unleashed one of the most devastating individual displays of the modern era in a 40-4 result at Parramatta Stadium, the Warriors’ biggest loss of the year.
The Warriors were also involved in arguably the year’s most extraordinary encounter at Penrith. Moon’s four-try haul powered the visitors to a 32-6 lead with 27 minutes left, but the Panthers piled on four unanswered tries to send the match into golden point. Despite the points-fest during regulation time, the additional 10 minutes failed to produce a scorer and the match finished 32-all – the equal-fourth highest scoring draw ever. Had they won, the Panthers would have equalled the all-time premiership record for the biggest comeback.
In the final round, the Warriors were swamped 30-0 by the Storm in Auckland – just the fourth time the club had been held to nil.
High Price to pay
Indomitable Warriors skipper Steve Price played the last of his 16 Tests for Australia in a 38-10 win over a Kiwis side containing clubmates Hohaia, Ropati, Vatuvei, Fien and Mannering in May 2009. His revered 28-Origin tenure ended in less desirable style, knocked out in an infamous stoush with NSW prop Brett White. Rib damage and a detached retina restricted him to just one NRL game in the last six rounds, but the 35-year-old was still the Warriors’ highest-polling player in the Dally M Medal count despite playing just 14 games. Coach Cleary dropped a bombshell in November, however, replacing Price as 2010 captain with 23-year-old Mannering. Regarded by many as the Warriors’ best-ever recruit, Price never took the field under his protégé’s leadership as a heel injury eventually forced his retirement.
As is traditionally the case in a disappointing campaign, the positives came from a player development perspective. Locke was the pick of eight NRL debutants, while Lewis Brown, Aaron Heremaia and robust back-rower Ukuma Ta’ai also racked up double-figure appearance tallies. Sophomore forwards Ben Matulino and Russell Packer became permanent first-graders, and recruit Lillyman was the only player to feature in all 24 games. Luck, Mannering and Sam Rapira were typically reliable, while fellow ‘young veteran’ Vatuvei finished with a team-high 13 tries (six clear of his nearest teammate) despite the side’s deficiencies in attack.
Matulino debuted for the Kiwis during the Four Nations, while Locke was a non-playing squad member (Hohaia was the only other Warrior to tour).
Jones, who announced in August he was hanging up the boots for good, endured an unequal share of the criticism for the Warriors’ failings. Courtesy of a couple of match-winning hands, he added to his enormous legacy at the club rather than tarnishing it.
Meanwhile, the Warriors’ brass avoided kneejerk reactions to the team’s slide down the ladder. Cleary, already the club’s longest-serving coach, was extended until the end of 2012 – a rare show of faith from an organisation that had made a habit of prematurely taking a hatchet to its coaching staff.
Patience pays off
Christchurch-born Lewis Brown played in a Riccarton Knights’ premiership win and represented Canterbury as a teenager, but the New Zealand Under-16s rep was unable to crack the NRL during stints with the Sharks’, Roosters’ and Tigers’ feeder teams. But a Warriors lifeline garnered a belated first-grade debut aged 22 after joining the Warriors in 2009. Manurewa junior Aaron Heremaia’s journey to NRL status was even more multifarious. The hooker/half was punted by the Warriors as a teenager in 2001, subsequently playing NSW Cup for Wests and Norths before turning out for second-tier English clubs Leigh, Widnes and Halifax. But after returning home, impressive form for the Vulcans netted a fulltime contract. Heremaia made his top-flight debut four weeks after Brown – and only a few months shy of his 27th birthday. Both became integral, consistent members of Ivan Cleary’s line-up. Heremaia played his sole Test for the Kiwis in 2010 and Brown broke into the national side a year later.
For the second year running, the Warriors’ under-20s came home with a wet sail, winning nine of their last 13 games to finish seventh before being eliminated by the Dragons. The side unearthed several future guns. Centre Siuatonga Likiliki – who made his sole NRL appearance for the club against the Eels late in 2009 – was the only Warriors player named in the NYC Team of the Year, but halfback livewire Shaun Johnson was their standout, scoring 17 tries and 237 points and leading the competition in try assists. Other mainstays included Elijah Taylor, Ben Henry, Bill Tupou and James Gavet.
That the Warriors did not completely implode was a minor miracle, having navigated their way through an eight-month haze in the wake of losing a beloved brother. Character cannot be measured in wins and losses – and the harrowing adversity of 2009 set the club up for a rousing resurgence.
NEW ZEALAND WARRIORS - 2009 NRL PREMIERHSIP SCORES
RD 1 (H) – Warriors 26 (Hohaia 2, Moon, Packer tries; Kemp 5 goals) d Eels 18
RD 2 (A) – Warriors 26 (Tate 2, Vatuvei, Royal, Ropati tries; Kemp 3 goals) d Sea Eagles 24
RD 3 (H) – Broncos 26 d Warriors 10 (Mannering, Ta’ai tries; Kemp goal)
RD 4 (H) – Rabbitohs 22 d Warriors 16 (Kirk, Luck, McKinnon tries; Kemp 2 goals)
RD 5 (A) – Knights 24 d Warriors 22 (McKinnon, Fien, Packer, Ah Van tries; Kemp 3 goals)
RD 6 (H) – Warriors 17 (Jones, Ropati, Vatuvei tries; Kemp 2 goals; Jones field goal) d Roosters 16 (golden point)
RD 7 (A) – Warriors 14 (Vatuvei 2, Ah Van tries; Kemp goal) drew with Storm 14 (golden point)
RD 8 (A) – Dragons 12 d Warriors 11 (Ah Van, Ropati tries; Ah Van goal; Jones field goal)
RD 9 – Bye
RD 10 (H) – Cowboys 34 d Warriors 12 (Fien, Kemp tries; Kemp 2 goals)
RD 11 (A) – Raiders 38 d Warriors 12 (Price, Mannering tries; Kemp 2 goals)
RD 12 (H) – Warriors 14 (Locke 2, McKinnon tries; Locke goal) d Tigers 0
RD 13 (A) – Sharks 18 d Warriors 10 (Vatuvei, Brown tries; Locke goal)
RD 14 (H) – Warriors 13 (Hohaia, Locke tries; Locke 2 goals; Hohaia field goal) d Knights 0
RD 15 – Bye
RD 16 (A) – Titans 28 d Warriors 12 (Hohaia, Brown tries; Locke 2 goals)
RD 17 (A) – Broncos 28 d Warriors 14 (Price 2 tries; Locke 3 goals)
RD 18 (H) – Bulldogs 18 d Warriors 14 (Vatuvei, Locke, Packer tries; Locke goal)
RD 19 (A) – Warriors 30 (Vatuvei 2, Mannering, Ah Van, McKinnon, Jones tries; Jones 3 goals) d Roosters 24
RD 20 (H) – Dragons 29 d Warriors 4 (Moon try)
RD 21 (A) – Warriors 32 (Moon 4, Brown tries; Locke 6 goals) drew with Panthers 32 (golden point)
RD 22 (H) – Titans 30 d Warriors 10 (Vatuvei 2 tries; Locke goal)
RD 23 (A) – Eels 40 d Warriors 4 (Vatuvei try)
RD 24 (H) – Warriors 34 (Hohaia 2, Heremaia, Mannering, Ropati, Moon tries; Locke 5 goals) d Raiders 20
RD 25 (A) – Bulldogs 40 d Warriors 20 (Vatuvei 2, Rapira 2 tries; Jones 2 goals)
RD 26 (H) – Storm 30 d Warriors 0
Won 7, Lost 15, Drew 2 – Points for: 377 Points against: 565 – Ladder Finish: 14th (of 16)
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