The Warriors lost 66-6 the last time they played on the Gold Coast. Photo / Photosport
The Warriors have endured some famous hoodoos over their long history but nothing quite as inexplicable as the recent record over the Gold Coast Titans, as Michael Burgess explains
Just so you know, the Warriors will beat the Titans on Saturday night.
That sentence has been written before in recent years – and backfired spectacularly – but not now. Surely.
So here we go again. The Warriors face the NRL’s bottom-placed team on the Gold Coast and there is trepidation in the fanbase. That’s because of the crazy recent record, where the Titans have developed into the most unlikely bogey team in the Warriors’ history. This has been the strangest hoodoo anyone can remember, as the Titans have won six of the past seven encounters, despite being underdogs almost every time.
It started in the final match of 2021, with the 44-0 disaster and three Warriors sinbinned. The score represented the biggest win in the Titans’ history. Gold Coast swept the Warriors the following season, including a comeback from 14 points down with seven minutes to play at Mt Smart.
Perhaps the most galling was Anzac Day last season. After being spared the trip to Melbourne, Go Media Stadium was packed for a party but it never got started as the Warriors fell 27-24 to a team who were winless (0-7) coming into the match. Eight rounds later came the 66-6 embarrassment at Robina stadium, before another shock a month ago in Auckland, which ended a four-match losing streak for the Titans.
The Warriors have endured negative patterns before in the NRL but they have been more logical. Whether it is Melbourne’s long outgoing streak since 2015, the Rabbitohs’ dominance for a decade, regular defeats at the hands of the Manly machine between 2010 and 2017 and the struggle to lay a glove on Brisbane in their first six seasons, there’s been an obvious disparity.
The Titans’ success has been harder to explain, which is probably what has made them so dangerous. As Warriors fans and pundits continually write them off, they have peaked for these contests, while the Auckland team stumbles.
Their supremacy has been even more surprising given the historical context, as the Warriors had traditionally been Kryptonite against the Queensland club. Between 2011 and 2018 they won 93% of the clashes (14/15), their best record against any NRL team.
However, everything suggests the Warriors will prevail this weekend (Saturday, 9.30pm). They have some troops back, confidence from the tight Dragons victory, much more to play for than their opponents and the redemption arc, while the Titans are coming off a 50-point thrashing at Cronulla and look headed for the wooden spoon. But who knows?
The original hoodoo
Brisbane were the Warriors bete noire in the early days. After coming close in the inaugural match, leading after an hour before two late Allan Langer tries, it took seven years for the Auckland team to beat the Broncos. It wasn’t a coincidence, as they had Wayne Bennett at his coaching peak and were laden with State of Origin players.
After nine consecutive defeats – eight by 12 points or more – the breakthrough came in round six of the 2001 season. It was a watershed match as the Warriors pack bullied their counterparts while Kevin Campion’s slug fest with Shane Webcke set the tone. The Broncos were the last remaining team the Warriors hadn’t beaten and the Auckland club reached the playoffs later that year.
Dynamite Dragons
No club – not even the Storm – has inflicted as much misery on the Warriors as the team in white and red. It started with a Gorden Tallis inspired 47-14 mauling in their first meeting in 1995 and didn’t really stop for another two decades. The Warriors only won five matches out of 27 from their inaugural season to 2016. The worst chapter came between 2004 and 2016, a period where the Dragons were beaten only once. There was also a pronounced Wollongong hex, with 10 consecutive losses there between 2000 and 2013.
South Sydney supreme
No matter where the two teams were on the NRL ladder, there was a long period where the Rabbitohs dominated their Auckland counterparts. It coincided with some strong eras at the Redfern club but was still painful. The run stretched from coach Matthew Elliott’s first year (2013) to Andrew Webster’s initial campaign (2023), encompassing 15 games. The only win for the Warriors in that time came in the 2018 season opener in Perth.
Melbourne misery
It’s difficult to imagine now but there was a time when the Storm used to fear the Warriors. Against arguably the NRL’s most dominant club, the Warriors had an impressive 8-1-7 record between 2008 and 2015, including some big playoff wins. Ivan Cleary particularly enjoyed the rivalry, with only three losses to Craig Bellamy in a nine-match run at one point. Of course everything has changed since, with 17 matches and 10 years elapsing since the last Warriors win, under Andrew McFadden in 2015, including plenty of painful Anzac day defeats.
Manly marvels
For a time, the Sea Eagles enjoyed regular, prolonged success against the Warriors – no matter where they played. For eight seasons they tormented the Auckland club, including a particularly painful comeback from nowhere in Perth in 2012. The Warriors had a 1-13 record versus Manly from 2010 to 2017, in matches played at Brookvale, Mt Smart, Eden Park, Western Australia and on the Central Coast.
Venue-based voodoo
As Kiwi league historian and author Will Evans points out, the Warriors have also had pronounced struggles at particular grounds. One of the most infamous examples was Townsville, where they only had one win from 12 attempts in the tropical heat between 2003 and 2017. They went 14 years without a win in Canberra between 1999 and 2013 and dropped eight on the bounce at Parramatta’s stadium from 1999-2007. They have a 1-5 record at Eden Park and four losses from five matches in Hamilton.
Michael Burgess has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America’s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast.