The Warriors women return to Auckland this weekend needing a response, and they know it. After a bruising 42-16 loss to the Canberra Raiders in round two of the NRLW, the side hosts the North Queensland Cowboys at Go Media Stadium on Saturday afternoon with a point to prove and a much longer injury list than any coach would want.
Saturday’s game kicks off at 5.15pm and gives the Warriors their first home outing of the season in front of their own crowd. It comes just six days after a performance that captain Apii Nicholls and coach Ron Griffiths have both described as well below the standard the club expects. The Raiders raced out to an 18-0 lead in Canberra and never looked back, running in eight tries to three. The numbers behind the scoreline told the story just as clearly, with the Warriors missing 44 tackles, coughing up 13 errors and conceding 10 penalties across the 70 minutes.
Much of that was down to circumstance rather than effort. The club has been hammered by injuries and suspensions through the opening rounds, and by the time the Raiders game came around Nicholls had been shifted out of her usual fullback role to play five-eighth. It was a position she had never started in at this level, and she was honest afterwards about how it felt to be thrown into an unfamiliar job on a night the team was already under pressure.
“I was excited with the new change, and excited to get out there and give it my best,” Nicholls told RNZ. “Obviously, it wasn’t the game I wanted, especially my first time in that position.”
The bright spot in Canberra came from an unexpected source. Development player Ocean Tierney, called into the side at short notice, marked her debut with two tries in a losing team. The 25 year old wore the number 20 and looked at home from the moment she took the field, and she has done enough to keep her spot on the wing for the Cowboys clash. In a week short on good news, a rookie announcing herself with a try double was exactly the kind of story the club needed.
The rest of the team news is a mix of returns and reshuffles. Wing Lavinia Tauhalaliku, who scored a try double in the season-opening win over the Canterbury Bulldogs before a concussion sidelined her, is back and reclaims a spot out wide. Second-rower Kaiyah Atai returns after breaking a finger, and front-rower Mya Hill-Moana is available again after serving a suspension. Sevens star Stacey Waaka shifts into the centres to add some polish to the backline. Even with those players back, the Warriors are still only able to name 19 of their 31-strong squad, a sign of just how stretched the group has become.
Griffiths has been around long enough to know that dwelling on the injury toll helps nobody. He has kept his message to the players simple and has been careful not to let his own frustration seep into the group.
“Earlier in my coaching career, I’ve learnt that things are often out of my control,” Griffiths said. He also reminded his players how little room there is for slip-ups in a competition this short. “In a season of 11 round games, every game is crucial, every game is critical.”
That maths is worth sitting with. With only 11 rounds before the finals, a single bad afternoon can shape a whole campaign, and the Warriors have already used one of their margins for error. A win over the Cowboys would put them back at one from two and keep them firmly in the hunt. Another loss, particularly a heavy one, would start to make the road to September look steep.
To their credit, the players have not tried to hide from the Canberra result. Nicholls said the group called its own meeting to work through what went wrong rather than waiting to be told.
“We had a players meeting. The players came together yesterday and briefly went over that performance,” she said. “We understood that wasn’t who we are, that’s not our standards.”
She also made clear that with the squad still changing week to week, adaptability has become part of the job. “There are still a few changes to come, and we will just adapt and trust our system,” Nicholls said.
The Cowboys arrive as a genuine test. North Queensland have built a reputation for physicality up the middle, and they will look to target a Warriors pack that has been chopped and changed all season. If the home side can win the collision and cut out the soft penalties that hurt them in Canberra, they have the outside backs to make it a contest. Waaka, Tierney and Tauhalaliku give the Warriors real threat once they get front-foot ball, and Nicholls settling back into a more familiar role would help the whole side find its rhythm.
For the Warriors organisation, the women’s team playing at home carries weight beyond the two competition points. The club has leaned heavily on the pull of playing in Auckland this season, and a lively crowd at Go Media Stadium would give a battered squad a lift at exactly the right time. The emergence of players like Tierney is a reminder that even a rough patch can turn up something worth building on.
What did you make of the Warriors women’s start to the NRLW season, and can they turn it around against the Cowboys? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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