Finals pain accumulating
Taine’s historic night
Bounce-back history
Record attendance beckons in garden of Eden
Knights enter hostile territory
In a match that arguably garnered more pre-game hype than any since the club’s 2011 grand final appearance, the Warriors ultimately fell flat in front of a packed house at Go Media Stadium — overrun by a gritty, adventurous Dolphins side 26-16.
The Warriors posted the opening try and led 10-2 before the Dolphins hit back. Three straight penalties — to the hindsight-driven chagrin of many fans — inched the Warriors out to 16-8 after 52 minutes.
But the Dolphins found another gear in the last quarter of the match, running in three unanswered tries as Herbie Farnworth (who finished with a try, two try assists, two line-breaks, 11 tackle-breaks and 272 metres) ran amok.
The Warriors had 53 percent possession and completed at 83 percent (36/43) to the Dolphins’ 81 percent (30/37). But the Dolphins were only just shaded in the total run metres and post-contact metres departments, and had an average set distance of 42.06 metres to the Warriors’ modest 37.11 metres.
The Dolphins finished with five line-breaks to two and 54 tackle-breaks to 42, showing real resolve after losing the penalty count (9-4) and set restart count (5-3).
The loss was the Warriors’ first after leading at halftime since Round 25 of the 2024 season, when Canterbury overturned an 18-16 deficit at the break to win 34-18 at Mount Smart.
Finals pain accumulating
The jarring loss was the Warriors’ sixth in seven finals matches since rolling Melbourne in the 2011 preliminary final.
Meanwhile, it will stretch the club’s week one drought to at least 19 years, losing all five since another iconic away victory over the Storm in 2008.
In their sixth home finals match, it was the Warriors’ third loss — the other defeats coming against Parramatta in week one in 2007, a 12-10 result, and last season’s 24-8 elimination final exit at the hands of Penrith.
The Warriors now have a 9-14 record in finals matches.
Taine’s historic night
Aside from being the Warriors’ best player with a team-high 225 metres from 22 runs, two line-breaks, nine tackle-breaks and a sizzling solo try, Taine Tuaupiki carved a couple of little notches of rugby league history for himself.
The much-talked-about glut of penalty goals saw Tuaupiki equal the NRL-era record for an individual player of five. Ryan Girdler kicked five in Penrith’s 17-16 loss to Parramatta in 1999; Ben Walker did it twice in the space of five games for Manly in 2003 — in a 20-16 loss to the Warriors and a 28-20 win over Souths; and Gareth Widdop slotted a handful in St George Illawarra’s 34-14 defeat of Melbourne in 2018.
Equally remarkably, Tuaupiki entered the upper echelon of the premiership’s record books for most points scored in a game when scoring all of a team’s points.
Only seven times in first grade history has a player bogarted a team’s scoresheet with more than 16 points. Terry Lamb (Canterbury v Wests in 1987) holds the premiership record with 26 points, while only Reuben Garrick (Manly v Canterbury in 2019) and Stephen Crichton (Penrith v Souths in 2023) — both with 18 — have eclipsed Tuaupiki’s haul in the NRL era. Jarrod Croker also scored all of Canberra’s points in a 50-16 loss to the Warriors in 2013.
Tuaupiki’s novel achievement is an all-time finals record.
Meanwhile, only 17 players in the competition’s history have scored more than Tuaupiki’s 16 points and finished on a losing team. Again, Tuaupiki racked up the highest tally in a finals match in that department.
The six-from-six night off the tee boosted his NRL career percentage to 87.18 (34 from 39).
Bounce-back history
In Saturday’s post-game press conference, Andrew Webster said “lots of teams have won grand finals that way”, referring to bouncing back from a qualifying final loss.
Running the numbers since the current finals format was adopted, in 14 seasons just two teams have recovered to win the premiership from a week one loss (Webster was an assistant coach for the last club to do it) and another two were runners-up in the decider.
Eight lost in the following week’s semi-final, meaning statistically you’re twice as likely to go out in straight sets than making the grand final if you drop your first finals game.
Sixteen teams (a touch over half) managed to win the following week’s semi before losing to a well-rested team at the preliminary final stage.
During 13 seasons of the convoluted McIntyre Finals System (1999-2011), three teams won the grand final after losing in week one: the 1999 Storm, 2004 Bulldogs and 2006 Broncos. The 2000 Roosters, 2005 Cowboys and 2011 Warriors reached the grand final.
In the first two seasons of Top 8 finals series (1995-96) — played under the same format we have now — both qualifying finals losers went out in straight sets in both years.
The Warriors are 2-1 in week two when they’ve had another bite of the cherry following a week one defeat. They were trounced by the Cowboys in Townsville in 2007 but edged the Tigers in Sydney in 2011 and whipped the Knights at home in 2023.
In the garden of Eden
The controversial staging of this weekend’s semi-final at Eden Park is almost certain to shatter the record for the the biggest Warriors crowd in New Zealand.
Eden Park has the top two entries on that particular table, attracting 38,412 fans for a historic Round 1 clash against Parramatta in 2011 and giving that figure a good nudge with 37,502 for their 2012 season opener against Manly.
Even more significantly, we could see the biggest-ever rugby league crowd in New Zealand at the 50,000-capacity ground.
A total of 47,363 crammed into the rugby union bastion for the 1988 World Cup final between New Zealand and Australia.
The Warriors have an unflattering 1-5 record at Eden Park in six matches there from 2011-14. Their sole win came in the last clash — a 54-12 beatdown of the Raiders in front of a modest crowd of 18,165.
Knights enter hostile territory
Newcastle jets across the Tasman searching for its first win in New Zealand since 2019, while the Knights have won just one of their last 12 on Kiwi soil.
Following the Warriors’ return from COVID exile, the Knights have been subjected to three losses at Go Media Stadium — including a 40-10 semi-final loss in 2023 — as well as defeats in Wellington in 2023 and Christchurch in 2025.
The Knights can take heart from a gallant 46-32 loss at Mount Smart only three weeks ago after having prop Jacob Saifiti sent off just 13 minutes in.
Since winning the 2001 premiership, the Knights have only reached one preliminary final, when Wayne Bennett’s 2013 outfit upset both of the previous year’s grand finalists — Canterbury and Melbourne — before going down to Sydney Roosters.
This is only their third week two finals appearance since Andrew Johns retired in early-2007, the others being a stunning away win over the Storm in 2013 and their defeat to the Warriors in Auckland in 2023.