Warriors to play NRL game at McLean Park in Napier next year

Tohu Harris, from Hawke's Bay, could return to the region to play next year. Photo / NZME

An investment in an Australian NRL match between Melbourne Storm and St George Illawarra seven years ago is bearing fruit with the New Zealand Warriors confirming one of its home matches will be played in Napier next year.

Vodafone Warriors CEO Cameron George said Napier would host one of two non-Auckland home games in the 2023 NRL season.

The opponents and dates for the matches, in Napier and Wellington, won't be known until the NRL releases the full season draw later this year.

It will be the Warriors first NRL game in Hawke's Bay.

Napier City Council had previously bought rights to a July 2015 Melbourne "home" game against St George Illawarra.

The council began the bid to get the Warriors to McLean Park almost before Melbourne and St George Illawarra were heading home on the bus from McLean Park .

That match had featured Hawke's Bay's Tohu Harris playing for the Storm. Harris is now the Warriors and New Zealand Kiwis captain.

The Warriors' reserve side with some star players, including Matthew Ridge, played a pre-season match at the former Nelson Park in Hastings in the 1990s.

The same park hosted a pre-season match involving Manly Seagulls in pre-Warriors days before a crowd of about 12,500 in February 1992, and the Canterbury Bulldogs in January 1994.