New Kiwis captain Adam Blair gets a much warmer reception from coach David Kidwell than he has from Warriors fans. Photo / Photosport
It's taken 23 years, and a lot of heartbreak, but the fans have finally turned en masse on the Warriors.
Even in their darkest hours, and there have been plenty, there was something appealing about a club which offered an alternative to the brooding centrally-controlled magnificence of the All Blacks. The Warriors had characters, even if they often lacked character.
Years of Warriors failure could be written off by the conspiracy theorists, as the work of biased referees and an NRL which didn't really want the Auckland-based league club to succeed. Trans-Tasman suspicions propped them up, ridiculously.
Never mind that the Warriors were set up to be the next Brisbane Broncos, one club in a big city with football talent oozing out of every school, club, mall and corner dairy. They managed to tread a weird line, making grand statements and signings while remaining the hard-done-by little brother.
No matter that a club which has had too many owners, chief executive, coaches, first grade players and methods repeatedly aimed a gun at a foot, and would happily blow their kneecaps off afterwards.
From the outset, it has been a chapter of sometimes comical errors, from the sunny day the inaugural coach John Monie blew a huge lead by sending on an illegal replacement which saw the Warriors' first win turn into their first public embarrassment. Wins and cock-ups have been running neck and neck ever since.
Monie made light by turning up to training the next week with a dunce's hat on and the cone has been metaphorically passed on, from generation to generation, waiting menacingly in the background even when it appeared the club had hit the good times.
Up it popped again last year, when chief executive Jim Doyle stretched credibility so far with the signing of a dishevelled and injured Kieran Foran that breaking point was inevitable.
It was such an outlandish Hail Mary play that Doyle's reputation was always going to rise or fall on it, totally. Foran has gone, and so has Doyle from the day-to-day running of the club.
Up step Adam Blair and Gerard Beale, two more questionable signings, as perfectly-timed lightning rods for the fans' fury, derision and despair after another dud season.
There are a few believers left, if you scroll through the social media comments, but they are swamped by the realists.
The Warriors need hardened props - as Kiwi great Tawera Nikau pointed out this week - but Blair is over the hill, and plays more like a part second rower. Beale is a decent but average NRL utility back, and no game changer.
The fans have unloaded on social media, and rightly so. They know, for starters, that players only come to Auckland because they get "overs", ie more money than they are worth because the Warriors are desperate.
The Warriors face something far more problematic than their own incompetence now. The All Blacks are playing a brand of rugby that thrills the masses, league often looking like a game played in shackles by comparison.
Somehow, rugby league has stolen the very kick-and-clap moniker it used to beat rugby union over the head with, the bar raising Storm playmaker Cooper Cronk operating with the brave-but-soulless precision of a data gobbling robot. Johnathan Thurston and his crackling laughter is a rare beast, and maybe a disappearing one.
About the only advantage left for the Warriors is their changing line of snazzy jerseys - the All Blacks are hampered by their own brand in that regard, the sombre kit hardly a natural winner with kids. They can ride out that anomaly though, when they play with all the colours of a rainbow.
As for the Warriors, their time with an understanding, compliant audience is up. They could have signed Cameron Smith and still copped a bagging, or at least an avalanche of scepticism, after another long losing streak. Blair and Beale - they didn't stand a chance.
Chris Wood's precise finishing was infectious. The stand-in All Whites captain and new Burnley English Premier league signing was all class with a hat trick in the first World Cup tie against the Solomon Islands at North Harbour Stadium. Others like the excellent Ryan Thomas and Michael McGlinchey followed his lead.
Wood has had a knack for scoring goals since his schoolboy days, often bemusing opponents and onlookers by finding the net whether he was playing well or not.
The return tie in the Honiara heat - protecting a five-goal advantage - was a completely different deal but the All Whites' goal scoring touch just about deserted them with Wood missing. One of their two goals in the draw was a deflection-assisted fluke.
Wood is a rising superstar of New Zealand sport. If he can bring his goals to the EPL, Wood could become the biggest publicity boom for football in this country for many years.
Wynton Rufer's achievements were heavily obscured because he played for a German rather than a high-profile English club. Ryan Nelsen and Winston Reid have forged amazing careers, but defenders don't excite the way a goal scorer does. Wood was missed in Honiara, but thankfully so.
In the All Whites coach we must largely trust when it comes to dealing with overseas clubs - building individual relationships and confidence with the likes of Burnley and Reid's West Ham are vital I suspect. The dapper Anthony Hudson got it dead right, banked some good will, when he released Wood and the Holland-based Thomas from the Honiara game.
Wood is winning hearts and minds with his determination to play for the All Whites, whatever the risk to his professional career. The All Whites might win more than that, with a goal scorer of his rare ability.