Fans during the NRL semi-final match between the New Zealand Warriors and Newcastle Knights at Go Media Stadium Mt Smart on 16 September. Photo: Fiona Goodall
There's been a recurring theme amongst the questions being asked of the Warriors for about the last month or so. It goes something along the lines of "at the start of the season, did you think you'd be standing here talking about being in the NRL finals?".
There's different contexts depending on who is getting asked. For Andrew Webster, it's simply an affirmation that everything he's done in his first year as a head coach has worked rather well. No one had particularly high expectations on him, given the mess the club's coaching situation has been for quite a while now, so the question is a free hit.
There's plenty of talk of resilience and growth that go further than the usual cliches because they tie in to the team's successes very nicely, but Webster has always been about being in the present.
"I think it won't hurt to ride the wave this week," he told media at Go Media Mt Smart Stadium on Tuesday.
"But we've been consistent with the fact that we've learned lessons from the weekend. The boys should be confident in what they achieved, but there're still things to work on."
Given that the 40-10 win over the Knights on Saturday night was the Warriors' best performance of the season, the talk about improvement will be encouraging for the club's long-suffering fans.
For Te Maire Martin, it's a slightly different tone when asked about whether they saw themselves one game away from a grand final. For a start, it's a minor miracle he's even playing at all. Three years ago, he was forced into early retirement after scans revealed bleeding on his brain, but he completed a remarkable comeback to make it back on the field in 2022. Not long after that, he signed a deal with the Warriors. Everything was going great until a leg injury sidelined him for a big chunk of the season.
"To get back to playing NRL firstly, that was huge," Martin said.
"Being in this position is unreal. It's been a long year, it's hard to explain. Kicked it off really well but with the injury was one of those ones that dragged on for ages. The boys were racking up wins and I wanted to play, it gets a bit lonely on the sideline. But I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason."
Then there's Shaun Johnson. In 2021, there were calls for him to retire, now he's one of the front runners for the Dally M Medal.
"When I signed back here it was on the basis of winning," Johnson said after the win over the Knights.
"Last year was rough, for a lot of reasons. But then when a great man like Andrew Webster signs on … he brings something pretty special. It's all about now, we'll attack next week."
The Warriors travel to Brisbane on Thursday night, into a date with destiny against the Broncos. Much had been made of the fact that Queensland is home to many New Zealanders, with Watene-Zelezniak joking that Suncorp Stadium should "have about 25,000 fans for each team" when the game kicks off on Saturday night.
It's unlikely the Broncos would let something like that happen, but there is still a special history between the two sides. They met in the Warriors' first ever game back in 1995, a highly entertaining game at Ericsson Stadium (now Go Media Mt Smart) that launched the team into the New Zealand sporting consciousness. Since then, the Warriors and Broncos have played in a number of memorable matches, with their shared existence as expansion projects that have stood the test of time binding them together.
There's obviously one big difference between them: the Broncos have won six premierships, the Warriors none.
"They've earned the right to be where they are," said Webster, probably not just referring to this season, but the last three decades.
