48 hours: Warriors’ rollercoaster decade

This will be a memory-lane week for Warriors aficionados - a chance for a wobbly walk back down the wild side.

It is 10 years ago that the Warriors played their first competitive match against the Broncos at Ericsson Stadium on an unforgettable night, and with a nation watching.

A decade on, the Broncos will return for Sunday's NRL match in their usual good health. As for the Warriors, though ...

It would be easy at this point to lapse into a state of despair about their muddled one step forward, two steps back opening decade. So I will, briefly.

Players, coaches, chief executives, owners, different competitions, crowds, money - they've all come and gone, leaving little to show.

Saturday night's loss against Parramatta was played in a Hamilton fog, but it was clear that they are on another road to nowhere. You have to wonder what club owner Eric Watson is making of all of this.

But enough of this party political broadcast on behalf of the disenchanted. At least they are still standing, and it was a lot of fun in the early days of covering the Warriors beat.

There was always a hint in the air of a mad escapade - and associated cover-up - from the outset.

Maybe the most infamous was when inaugural coach John Monie and players linked to the breakaway Super League held a clandestine meeting at Monie's house. The coach, when quizzed, claimed they had been reviewing a match video. Monie delved further into fiction after being spotted meeting Super League supremo John Ribot at Auckland Airport.

When the rugby great John Kirwan appeared on the sideline at a Warriors training, Monie explained this away by saying Kirwan - who owned a lighting business - was working at Monie's house. Kirwan quickly signed for the club.

Soon after, Monie went into overdrive trying to prevent any hard news of All Black Marc Ellis' signing getting out. Monie told me that a clause in the contract allowed Ellis to escape the deal if the club leaked the information. There was just always something going on.

There was even an incident when a documentary film maker was given extensive access to the Warriors' operation and players' inner sanctum - only for the club to find they had been duped by a nosy conman.

The club has had its share of great professionals, starting with initial captain Dean Bell. But there have been a fair few scallywags as well.

I well recall Monie recounting a meeting with a distraught wife who had last seen her high-profile husband heading out the door to play golf on Monday, 10 days previously.

It was also during these early days that I fielded a call from an acquaintance and club league player who after some perfunctory opening lines, announced with forced nonchalance that he would be on the wing against the Broncos that weekend. This seemed a little far- fetched even for him and you felt obliged to laugh as hard as Wendell Sailor would have if he'd seen him. Yet, this was no joke.

Clubs signed to the breakaway Super League but still tied to the ARL competition for the 1996 season were forfeiting their opening round matches because Super League-contracted players were refusing to play. The Warriors' grand plan, under chief executive Ian Robson, was to field a team of Auckland club players.

The ploy worked, because when the Broncos forfeited, the Warriors got the points. Where else but in league would you find such mad-cap goings on?

The Warriors also brought the characters of Australian league into view. A favourite was the former Aussie player and Wests coach Tommy Raudonikis, a warm-hearted and raspy-voiced fellow who seemed to regard having a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other as compulsory. He may also have brushed his hair with an egg beater.

I rang him one day at his home, and was informed that Raudonikis was at a neighbour's having a beer. The bloke answering the phone said he would scale the back fence and fetch the coach. Which he did, allowing Raudonikis to clamber back to the house - with the beer and cigarette in hand, you imagined - to mount a defence for a Warriors player who was in judicial trouble. You don't meet Raudonikis types anymore.

And the Aussies weren't the only characters.

Enter Warrior Tony Tatupu, the one and only. You'll never hear a bad word here about Tatupu. You wouldn't meet a nicer bloke. But he wasn't exactly a coach's dream and even required a minder to prevent him missing flights.

When Tatupu broke his arm he shunned the usual treatment of having a plate inserted in favour of traditional Samoan massage applied by the mother of team-mate Tony Tuimavave.

"I have always heard of miracles happening in the islands," Tatupu announced.

His approach caused what you might describe as surprise, especially within the Australian and English contingent at the club.

The lanky Tatupu had exceptional talent but his career fell well short of its potential and he departed with a whimper. Familiar story?

Tatupu's character played its part, but his story is hardly an isolated one at the Warriors. Tatupu is a policeman now and I saw him recently during an operation in central Auckland.

He was almost anonymous, wrapped in his uniform and peaked hat. Then he unleashed that smile and it brought back so many memories about the Warriors' journey - both good and bad.