warriors v bulldogs

[ozbash]

Warriors Still In The Hunt

Auckland, New Zealand, July 24, 2001 - Warriors head out of 'hell alley' still in touch.
When the Vodafone Warriors take on the in-form Canterbury Bulldogs this Saturday night at Ericsson Stadium they would have played the leading four teams in the Telstra Premiership in their last four consecutive games.
Daniel Anderson said he refuses to concede that his side is out of finals
contention and although he has lost the raw power of rookie forward Iafeta
Paleaaesina for the remainder of the season, he knows his team has enough
bite in them to cause the Bulldogs problems.
'We are still in with a chance and I'm predicting our top-eight prospects
will go right down to the last game of the season. I'll be very happy if we
can come out of hell alley with two wins from the four best teams in the
competition", said Anderson.
"We continued to show a lot of character as a team in our game against the
Knights, we scored some very good tries, yet we had individual defensive
lapses that were costly. The Bulldogs have been on fire in recent weeks so
we will have to be right on our game to combat their strike-power".
Although Ivan Cleary retired with a back injury during the Knights game, he
has been named to play at fullback. Mark Tookey returns to the interchange
bench to cover for the loss of Paleaaesina.
Daniel Anderson has named the following team to take on the Canterbury
Bulldogs
1. Ivan Cleary
2. Henry Faafili
3. Wairangi Koopu
4. Clinton Toopi
5. Francis Meli
6. Motu Tony
7. Stacey Jones (c)
8. Jerry SeuSeu
9. Monty Betham
10. Ali Lauitiiti
11. Logan Swann
12. Awen Guttenbeil
13. Kevin Campion (c)
14. Justin Murphy
15. Mark Tookey
16. Nathan Wood
17. Richard Villasanti

man i just love this "copy and paste" !

 

[legend]

I think the Warriors are in with a real chance in this game. They just have to fix their defence on the fringes and they will be a big chance. I still think they have had a great year but hopefully they can win a few more and make the semis. If the warriors were to make it it would be the best thing for league in N.Z.

Any word on Jonah?

 

[ozbash]

Aussie Reports Claim Lomu May Switch ,,july 27th

There are reports from Australia this morning that All Black superstar Jonah Lomu may switch codes. Australian newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, says Lomu is to open negotiations today to play for the Warriors in the NRL with the club's CEO Mick Watson meeting with Lomu's manager Phil Kingsley Jones.
Watson says it appears Jonah is deadly serious and it is not just a bid to inflate his asking price when he comes off contract at the end of the season.
Mick Watson says an associate of Kingsley-Jones says Jonah does not feel he has been treated right by the New Zealand Rugby Union.
He says they would need to entice a third party sponsor as Lomu would not come cheaply.
Lomu was left out of the side to play Samoa in the All Blacks opening test of the season.
He leaves with the All Black squad for South Africa today.

 

[legend]

Hhhmmm. I really don't know what to make of this one yet. I am still leaning towards Jonah sticking with rugby but I am just as likely to wake up one morning switch on the tele and fins his mug on tv happily parading around in a N.Z Warriors jersey. Then I would like to go and give John O'Neill a big kick in the arse. Actually, i'd like to do that regardless.

 

[ozbash]

legend. this is the gospell according to www.xtra.co.nz who are my ISP.
another good source of kiwi news is www.nzoom.com

 

[ozbash]

latest news/goss is that negotiations are on hold till october. presumably to give the warriors a chance to find someone to sponsor jonah as he would blow their cap to smithereens...

 

[imported_kier]

Well........the Lomu story is currently the headline on planet-rugby.com (I occasionally sneak over to see what "they" are thinking....)

It also made the sports pages of several UK papers...

You never know - it may give us a temporary respite from the constant "RL in crisis" stories we're getting all the time over here.

 

[Warrior]

Ivan Cleary has been ruled out with a back injury. Smells like Wellington to me!!!!

The side now looks like this:

1. Toopi
2. Murphy
3. Meli
4. Koopu
5. Faafili
6. Tony
7. Jones
8. Seu Seu
9. Betham
10. Lauitiiti
11. Swann
12. Guttenbiel
13. Campion

Reserves: Tookey, Wood, Villisante, Myles

 

[Kipper]

Just how crucial is this game? Unfortunately it seems everything is conspiring against the Warriors' run home. The Bulldogscoming off a streak of wins and a victory at ANZ against the Broncos, then the Panthers look like they might start to thrive as giant killers, the Sharks are looking great, and you can never write off a desperate Roosters or Storm outfit. I guess it would also be arrogant of me to rule out a loss to the Cowboys at home, considering the thrashing they gave us in Townsville.

The worst part is that even though tomorrow could well be the crunch game of the whole season for the Warriors, if we were running a 'pick the crowd' sweepstake I'd beopting for no more than about 7,500.

Way to go, Auckland. Why don't you have another moan about Ericsson's facilities while the promising foundation the New Zealand Warriors have started to lay down crumbles due to lack of financial support. Lookhow poorly it reflects on NZ's biggest city - a team full foreign and ex-unionhas-beensthat became renowned for tanking it got 20,000+ crowds, while a team based around talented young localsright in the thick ofplay-off contention get about 8,000.

It makes me wonder why Eric Watsonis seemingly prepared to piss aroundfunding the continued attempts to make anAuckland-based NRL team work. Surely the Warriors and Aucklanders have to eventually face the same commercial reality that all the littlesuburban shops around NZ with "to let" signs in their front windowsface - you usethem or you losethem.

 

[Cronulla_Mania]

Taking a punt, id say they will get 10,000+. They almost beat the knights last week and i dont think a lot would have gone home unhappy. A saturday night usually draws pretty well, and canterbury has alot of supporters across the pond. All of the wellington fans who turned up to watch the dogs go around a couple of months ago may make the track to ericsson stadium. The crowd last sunday was remarkably poor. Any reasons why? I thought that was teribly dissapointing, were there any extenuating circumstances??
MFC.