NRL greats answer the call for Napier speaking gig

Cliff Lyons, who played 309 NRL matches for Manly Sea Eagles, pictured on the programme front for the 1992 pre-season match in Hastings. He returns to Hawke's Bay as a function guest on the eve of Manly's 2026 pre-season match against New Zealand Warriors.

Three players with almost 1000 Australian NRL appearances between them will be at a speaking gig in Napier on the eve of the New Zealand Warriors’ match against Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles next month.

Cliff Lyons’ 332 matches included 309 for Manly from 1986-1999, and second-row forward Steve Menzies’ 349 included 280 matches for the club in two stretches spanning 1993-2008.

Their records for Manly are superseded only by current star Daly Cherry-Evans, with 352 on the board.

The third rugby league guest at the function at Napier’s McLean Park on the evening of February 13 is Auckland-born Kieran Foran, whose 318 NRL matches included 192 for the Sea Eagles and 17 for the Warriors.

Also on the bill is former South Africa and New Zealand netball star Irene Van Dyk, who lives in Hawke’s Bay.

Foran will be in Napier for the match as the new assistant Sea Eagles coach, but Lyons and Menzies decided on the trip only in answering the call for Manly greats interested in appearing at the Friday night gig, function organiser Damon Harvey said.

Lyons was at standoff, otherwise known as five-eighths, for Manly in the sell-out pre-season game against Hawke’s Bay-Wainuiomata combination the Lion Red XIII in January 1992 at the now-gone Nelson Park, Hastings.

He was the featured player on the front of the printed programme for a match which attracted more than 12,000 people on a hot summer Sunday afternoon.

With the Warriors set-up still more than three years away, Manly was at the time the New Zealand fans’ adopted NRL team, coached by Graham Lowe (now Sir Graham Lowe) and featuring such names as Matthew Ridge and Tony Iro.

The sport legends special, also expected to be attended by Tohu Harris, Hawke’s Bay’s former Warriors skipper, is an evening affair, starting at 5.30pm and ending by 8pm.

Harvey said it would be largely a stand-up affair, with the focus on the football greats rather than food or refreshment.

A sellout is expected ahead of the late-afternoon game at McLean Park the next day, which is understood to have about 8000 tickets sold to date.

Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier and with a journalism career of more than 50 years. He was also a rugby league administrator in Hawke’s Bay when Manly played in Hastings in 1992.