Millionaire league club owner Eric Watson's plan to send three jumbo jets full of Warriors fans to Sydney may have been grounded - but 10,000 fans in Sydney and New Zealand will get free tickets to this Saturday's semifinal against the Canberra Raiders.
And to help create a home-ground advantage, the
team and sponsor Vodafone is bringing over actor Temuera Morrison and two "real Maori warriors" to cheer the boys on.
From 11am today at Ticketek outlets in Sydney, people with a New Zealand passport can get four tickets to the game at Stadium Australia. Some tickets will also be given away through Ticketek outlets in Auckland from 1pm today - but passports aren't required.
The ticket giveaway was supposed to be only part of a package that included three 747s taking about 400 supporters to Sydney on a day trip for Saturday's game, Warriors chief executive Mick Watson said.
The jets were to have left after the 7.30pm game but because of Sydney Airport's 11pm curfew the flights were cancelled. But the jets might fly next week - if the Warriors beat the Raiders - because next week's game was on earlier, Mr Watson said.
"If the team can get through I'm confident that we can still pull this off."
Mr Watson expects about 20,000 New Zealanders to turn up at the 42,000-capacity stadium and he hoped that would give the Warriors the home ground advantage.
