Blues v Warriors v Auckland FC: Who will capture our sporting affections? – Sports Insider

Respective fans of Auckland City, the Blues and the Warriors. Photos / Photosport

The Blues v the Warriors v Auckland FC. Which franchise will achieve the highest honours this year? It’s one of five key questions Sports Insider is posing about the future of New Zealand sport as we look ahead to a consequential year. All in your first Sports Insider column of 2025.

There was a time when nobody dared to think Auckland would be anything other than a rugby city.

The great blue-and-white-hooped Auckland team featuring household names like Sir John Kirwan, Sir Michael Jones, Zinzan Brooke and Sean Fitzpatrick dominated the NPC so much, they created a halftime phenomenon known as the “Eden Park Shuffle”.

The Auckland fan faithful would spend the first half sitting behind the opposition tryline as their heroes slayed their hapless opposition with a flood of points.

Then during the halftime break, the throng would promptly pick up sticks and march to the opposite end of the park for the anticipated second-spell onslaught. It must have been a demoralising sight for any opposition.

That dominance of the late-1980s and early-1990s morphed into the first version of the Blues Super Rugby juggernaut of the mid-to-late 90s, cementing Auckland as a rugby union stronghold.

Nor was the citadel even vaguely under threat.

After an initial burst of hype in 1995, the Warriors flattered to deceive and predictions of a league takeover of New Zealand’s biggest city spluttered.

At the same time, soccer (sorry, football) was performing even worse as a credible presence in the City of Sails.

The Auckland Kingz had been birthed as New Zealand’s representative in Australia’s national competition in 1999, only to fail to reach the playoffs in any season through to 2004.

The club then morphed into the New Zealand Knights as one of eight founding teams in Australia’s new A-League competition, where two under-achieving seasons followed before poor crowds persuaded the Aussies to pull the licence at the end of the 2006-2007 season.

By the following season, the Wellington Phoenix had replaced the Knights as New Zealand’s A-League representatives.

The Blues hadn’t won the Super Rugby title for three years at that time, but rugby still seemed impenetrable.

So, let’s fast forward to the end of last year ...

The Warriors and Auckland FC now top their respective Australian leagues for average crowd attendances.

Last year, off the back of a breakthrough 2023 season, the Warriors became the first club in the National Rugby League’s (NRL) history to sell out every home game.

And Auckland FC’s stunning start to their maiden A-League season has seen them draw a crowd average of 17,278 at their seven home matches to date at Mt Smart Stadium, including a blockbuster 26,000-plus attendance for the local derby against the Phoenix.

Auckland FC captain Horoki Sakai celebrates after scoring against the Phoenix. Photo / Photosport

That leaves Bill Foley’s new team sitting at the top of A-League crowd attendances ahead of heavyweights like Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory, as well as leading the points race.

Likewise, if the Warriors make a bold start to this year’s NRL, there is no doubt Mt Smart will keep rollicking with 25,000-plus crowds.

So where does this leave the Blues, rugby’s sole shop window in Auckland and who, under Vern Cotter, did all they possibly could last season to regain credibility by securing the now Super Rugby Pacific title for the first time in yonks?

In doing so, their average home crowd at Eden Park was around 21,000 and inflated by a 44,000 attendance for the final against the Chiefs.

The stats underline a very real battle for Auckland’s sporting affections, which even the longest greybeards among the city’s sports observers have never seen.

It sets the stage for a fascinating battle as Auckland FC continue to prove there is substance to the hype and the Warriors remain on the cusp of annual credibility.

Will the Blues even manage half the crowds the Warriors are likely to draw, and Auckland FC are now regularly pulling, during the early rounds of this season’s Super competition?

When your entire P&L balance sheet is driven off match attendance, I’d be very worried if I was a Blues owner.

Remaining relevant in New Zealand’s largest city is becoming a real problem for rugby.

Could it be that one of its own, former All Black and Auckland FC part-owner Ali Williams, is right that the city he grew up in could be lost to rugby as its citizens are lured elsewhere by rival offerings?

Will the All Blacks’ aura continue to fade, and can David Kirk save New Zealand Rugby?

Last year, was surely one of New Zealand Rugby’s worst.

A financial loss of $9 million, a divided and dysfunctional board fighting against the inevitable before falling on their swords after the Pilkington Review, the inaugural chief executive of its shiny new commercial company walking after just 10 months in the job.

Then there was the not insignificant matter of a stuttering start to Scott Robertson’s All Blacks coaching tenure.

Not that 2025 is dawning with strong portents of revival either.

The best player in the women’s game, Michaela Brake (nee Blyde), has defected to the Warriors, the Springboks are a better than-even prospect of ending the All Blacks’ 50-test unbeaten run at Eden Park on September 7, and the Black Ferns face the almighty task of keeping the only major trophy in the New Zealand Rugby (NZR) cabinet – by beating England at this year’s World Cup.

Michaela Blade is cutting from representing the Black Ferns Sevens team to join the Warriors. Photo / Photosport

All of which leaves incoming NZR chair David Kirk with a challenge surely larger and more complex than leading the All Blacks to victory in the first World Cup almost 38 years ago.

If anybody is up to it, Kirk is.

But rugby’s troubled house is in such disrepair that Kirk and a new and – on the face of it, anyhow – competent board face major challenges in halting the decay.

Silver Lake stand exposed as an emperor with no clothes and the financial bite only intensifies this year with the American private equity firm taking 7.5% of NZR’s revenue while Sky wipes $20m-plus off the balance sheet in a renewed broadcasting deal.

Sports Insider fears another brutal year awaits our national game.

Stadium Wars: Will Auckland finally give up on Eden Park?

We are still a year away from the welcome addition of the Te Kaha Stadium in Christchurch.

It’s been a frustrating and interminable wait for the Canterbury sporting public, robbed of the Lancaster Park shrine in the great 2011 earthquake and still 12 months away from celebrating its $500m roofed replacement.

Stadiums remain a fascination for Kiwi sports fans who, especially when watching American sport, are growing increasingly aware of just how poorly serviced we are as fans.

None more so than in Auckland, where Eden Park continues to pull off a master class in rhetoric and deception over where the country’s biggest and best sports stadium should be based.

In any other city, that would obviously be its CBD. When you have the bonus of one of the world’s premier harbours, the waterfront option is a no-brainer.

This year will mark the final decision by Auckland Council on whether a revamped Eden Park, including a sliding roof, wins sway over the Quay Street waterfront proposal.

In my opinion, the best place for a CBD stadium is the Tank Farm, where SailGP showcased Auckland’s inner city to its best effect, but it has been prematurely discarded.

Quay Street has its challenges, but is still an infinitely better option than Eden Park, not the least because it’s unclear exactly where the almost $1 billon needed for the Sandringham stadium’s revamp is going to come from.

And if Eden Park does get the nod and then down the track comes crying poor to Auckland’s ratepayers and central Government for funding, please don’t say you weren’t warned.

Will Warriors self-interest derail a second Kiwi NRL franchise?

The NRL is both an inspiring and infuriating organisation.

The Australian competition kicks a number of impressive goals annually and remains the most innovative football league in the Southern Hemisphere.

But it’s frustrating that the NRL is propped up by a stack of New Zealand and Polynesian-heritage players and continues to treat this country like little more than a source of labour.

In the race for NRL expansion spots, Perth’s claim they deserve a licence ahead of a second New Zealand side has as much merit Australia’s insistence to have invented pavlova.

Yet Papua New Guinea and Perth will secure the 18th and 19th expansion licences in 2027 and 2028 respectively, leaving New Zealand scrambling for the last spot before the league splits into two 10-team conferences from 2030 onwards.

If the Warriors have their way, there won’t be any new Kiwi franchise and if there is, it will be based as far south of Auckland as possible.

David Moffett, the boss of the Christchurch-based South Island Kea syndicate, has rightly called out this enormous self-interest.

Sports Insider believes any second Kiwi franchise has a greater chance of success if based in Auckland – a move that would better support a smarter NRL strategy, which would be to own the country’s biggest city.

But even though the Warriors have not earned the right across three decades of under-achievement to stymie an opponent – let alone rob the competition of the sort of local derby power being created by Auckland FC and the Phoenix – it hasn’t stopped the club trying to throw their weight around.

Expansion will remain a hot topic on both sides of the Tasman during 2025.

Sports Insider thinks Moffett’s Kea organisation is the most credible hope at this stage.

Is this the year High Performance Sport NZ is finally held to account?

Why aren’t the Liam Lawsons of New Zealand sport funded during their early careers in the same way as the Dame Lisa Carringtons?

It’s just one of a slew of reasonable questions that could be asked of our government-funded sports organisation, which continues to dole out taxpayer money to “high-performance” sports, despite a questionable strategy.

Some of those past decisions include ignoring anybody in sport using an engine and practically anybody picking up a tennis racket.

Despite New Zealand’s stellar international motorsport record, current superstars such as Scott Dixon and emerging ones like Lawson are forced to rely on benefactors like the late Sir Colin Giltrap and other philanthropists to fund their early careers.

Liam Lawson (left) and Scott Dixon were both well supported by Kiwi backers in the early stages of their careers. Photo / Supplied

For some obscure reason, it would appear that High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) doesn’t think of motorsport (two or four wheels, open-wheelers, rally cars or Supercars) as a real sport worthy of its attention or funding.

As for tennis, it again seems that the attitude is “why bother?” It’s considered too competitive globally, so Tennis New Zealand largely gets shafted on funding. There’s been a belated rush to attach itself to golf via Dame Lydia Ko, but the reality is she and the likes of Ryan Fox achieved their lofty status in spite of HPSNZ, not because of them.

And if you’re fortunate enough to attend a school where they can afford rowing equipment, or you have parents who can support you in an expensive sport like sailing or cycling, you’re in a good state. HPSNZ loves those sports because they win Olympic medals.

But how many kids in New Zealand have true access to those sports – and at what cost is the prioritisation of medals over mental health?

The Olivia Podmore inquest, which is sadly dragging on into this year, laid bare the abysmal handling of a distressed athlete by her National Sports Organisation (NSO) and our national funding body.

Sports Insider believes HPSNZ needs to be disbanded and the funding of athletes brought under the banner of Sport New Zealand, who then need to conduct an independent review of which sports are funded and to what degree.

Will it happen?

Team of the Week

Sir Russell Coutts: A genius entrepreneur as well as one of our greatest sailors. Coutts has created something special with SailGP, which thrilled Aucklanders and showcased dynamic modern sport at its best.

Chris Wood: Scored his 14th goal of the season for Nottingham Forest in a win over Southampton last weekend to equal his best Premier League season – and there are still 15 games left!

Maya Hahn: New Zealand wins a battle over Germany for the affections of the 23-year-old rising midfielder and current Bundesliga player who is expected to be rushed into the Football Ferns squad to play Costa Rica next month.