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Sports Insider: Warriors guilty of throwing rocks at glass houses in NRL expansion row
By Trevor McKewen
Sports Insider·NZ Herald·
19 Feb, 2025 05:00 PM10 mins to read
Dame Lydia Ko, Dana White, Clayton McMillan and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. Photos / Photosport, Getty images
An attack on a rival and a bid to stop a second New Zealand franchise reveal a Warriors outfit getting ahead of themselves and showing great hubris in the process; New Zealand Rugby executives are in the firing line as a secret email circulates among provincial unions; And Dame Lydia Ko tops an unforgettable year. All in today’s Sports Insider.
While rugby union burns in this country, its rival code continues to fiddle, squabble among itself and is increasingly in danger of squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
Press coverage here about the Australian National Rugby League’s (NRL) mooted expansion programme is as thin on the ground as Warriors premierships while we still remain fixated with the slow train wreck that is New Zealand Rugby (NZR).
But across the pond, there are almost daily excitable reports on which franchises will secure the remaining three licences in the NRL’s planned 20-team club competition, many featuring New Zealand contenders.
Beyond Papua New Guinea’s bizarre taxpayer-funded (American and Australian) bid and a team based in Perth, there were four Kiwi syndicates alone bidding for the remaining licence, likely to be granted by 2030.
That’s now down to three after the first syndicate, headed by former Canterbury league officials and involving former Kiwis coach Frank Endacott, fell over.
We even have the fanciful notion of a Pasifika-themed franchise in Auckland – something that will never happen, not because it’s not a good idea but because the bid lacks substance and credibility.
The South Island Kea (headed by former NZR and NRL chief executive David Moffett) and the Southern Orca (a rebooted Wellington bid shifted south) are frequently in the headlines in Australian media, pushing their respective wares.
Perhaps it is this presence that has persuaded the Warriors to weigh in across the Ditch and declare themselves as the only franchise that should exist in this country.
Not for the first time, Warriors CEO Cameron George told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph that no other side should be admitted from New Zealand for at least “10 to 15 years” – a scenario that would effectively (and conveniently) kill off a second team.
In particular, George took the long handle to Moffett – and in doing so, revealed he knows little of the recent history of the game in this country.
“It’s funny because David Moffett has been quite vocal about how he’s coming to get the Warriors,” George told the Telegraph.
“This is the problem. I think he was the CEO of the NRL (in 2001), why didn’t he put money into New Zealand rugby league then? Then, all of a sudden, we’re saying we’re ready to go now.”
Park for a moment that Auckland FC and football have shown what healthy rivalries can produce. It is not only a self-serving comment, it’s an ignorant one.
Moffett actually saved the Warriors in 2001 from being kicked out of the NRL following a covert campaign by a cabal of ruthless Sydney club owners who wanted the Kiwi franchise gone.
I should know what happened because I had a seat at the table when it all went down.
At the height of Tainui’s ownership of the Warriors imploding following boardroom squabbles and eye-watering debt, Moffett and his successor David Gallop flew to New Zealand to ensure the Warriors stayed alive.
It was a painful exercise, given the new owner Eric Watson made it clear he would pay only $1 for the licence, wanted to sack everybody and also didn’t intend to honour the existing player contracts.
It would have been easy for the NRL to walk away from New Zealand at that point.
As the Warriors CEO at the time, I was hardly enamoured with Moffett seemingly working so hard to accommodate Watson.
But the veteran administrator ultimately made the right decisions. He not only helped the Warriors to survive but actually thrive, suggesting the club rename itself the “New Zealand Warriors” and adopt a black playing strip – which Watson promptly did.
That hardly seems the actions of a man that George has portrayed as being missing in action around the code in New Zealand at that time.
In fact, I recall one powerful Sydney club boss telling me at the time: “You blokes are bloody lucky ‘Moff’ had your back or you were gone.”
Here’s another history lesson for the current Warriors administrators.
Your regime is also not the first to have either placed emerging Warriors players with lower-grade Australian clubs or to field teams in junior grades – something George has touted as a reason why the Warriors should retain a monopoly.
The former was happening as long as 25 years ago when surplus players to the 18-man NRL first-grade squad were placed weekly with either the Newtown Jets in Sydney’s NSW Cup competition or Brisbane South in Queensland’s equivalent.
That was a commitment made in perilous financial times and without any NRL cash assistance – not like now where a substantial multimillion-dollar grant from head office propels the bulk of club development at the existing 17 franchises.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck in action for the Warriors in a pre-season match against Melbourne. Photo / Photosport
Club owner Mark Robinson is no doubt tipping money in to help finance junior Warriors teams playing in Australian competitions, but the commercial strength of the NRL makes that far more palatable than previous eras.
Fielding five junior teams in Sydney is not some sort of visionary breakthrough – if anything, it’s a sign of hubris from a club acting as if it holds the sovereign role of developing the game in this country.
Little wonder then that Moffett fired back.
“The Warriors – a team with 30 years of underachievement both on and off the field – are suddenly the self-appointed gatekeepers of rugby league in New Zealand,” Moffett reminded Telegraph readers.
“Yet now they suddenly have the vision to ‘take over’ the country?
“Spare us. Their notion of monopolising New Zealand rugby league is as bizarre as it is delusional. They don’t run rugby league in New Zealand; they merely occupy a seat they’ve done little to earn.”
Touché.
If George wants an example of how competition is good for a club and code, he merely needs to stick his head outside his Penrose office on Saturday and view the second sold-out crowd at Mt Smart for Auckland FC’s local derby with the Wellington Phoenix.
That’s real vision.
Theres a WA BEARS article directly under the top pasted which is the same triple M Cook shutup Vlandys thing that some journos seemingly havent heard the actual interview and the jest behind it lol (they think he was serious which is some poor journalism) anyways that article which is a copy already posted article in WA Bears thread has this at the very end
The NRL’s apparent determination to wrangle public money from any new franchise is the key obstacle to another New Zealand team. It simply won’t happen no matter what Government we have in place and cash-strapped councils are not going to pay either.
Warriors are focused on self interest .., the NRL needs to tell them to sod off…
I think we all know there isn’t a decent NZ bid yet .., so maybe they need to wait for that first
