A hat-trick from Tysha Ikenasio has lifted the Warriors women to a 22-14 win over the Newcastle Knights in Hamilton, a result that pulls the New Zealand side back into contention at the sharp end of the NRLW ladder.
The Warriors were electric from the opening whistle. Ikenasio scored twice inside the first six minutes, finishing backline moves on the right wing with the pace and power that has become her trademark since she switched codes. For a quarter of an hour it looked as though the home side might run away with the game.
The Knights had other ideas. Simone Karpani crossed for a well constructed try, and Newcastle then got a slice of luck when halfback Kirra Dibb was struck by an Apii Nicholls kick at close range, gathered the loose ball and ran roughly 80 metres to score. The conversion sent the visitors into the break holding a 12-10 lead, and the Warriors went to the sheds having squandered a strong start.
The second spell belonged to the home team. Ikenasio completed her hat-trick early after the restart, Stacey Waaka scored midway through the half, and a chip and chase from captain Nicholls stretched the margin far enough that the Knights could not haul it back.
Ikenasio was quick to share the credit, singling out the centre outside whom she has spent much of the season. “Stacey is awesome, she’s great on the field and off it, and has been a real asset to our team and I have loved playing outside her,” she told Sky Sport.
Nicholls said the side had gone in expecting a hard night. “We knew the Knights were going to bring it tonight, we knew it was going to be a tough game, but super proud of our girls for just turning them away and working hard for each other,” the captain said.
The competition points matter more than the manner of the win. Both teams arrived in Hamilton level on six points, four adrift of the leading group of the Brisbane Broncos, the Sydney Roosters and the Gold Coast Titans. The victory gives the Warriors four wins from six games and eight points, two behind that leading trio, while the Knights slip back into the middle of the table.
It was also a useful correction after the previous weekend, when the Warriors let an 18-16 game against the Titans slip away. Two losses in a row at this stage of a short season would have been costly. The NRLW regular season runs to 11 rounds, the top six sides qualify for a three week finals series, and the grand final is scheduled for Accor Stadium in Sydney on Sunday 4 October alongside the men’s decider. With five rounds still to play, a single result can move a club three places either way.
There was a private edge to the win for Warriors coach Ron Griffiths. Before joining the New Zealand club he coached Newcastle, guiding the Knights to back to back NRLW premierships in 2022 and 2023, which remain the only titles that club has won. Griffiths has since been appointed head coach of the Kiwi Ferns for the Rugby League World Cup at the end of the year, which means a good chunk of the squad he beat on Saturday night and a good chunk of the squad he fielded are all inside his selection thinking.
Ikenasio’s night says something about how quickly the Warriors have converted rugby talent into league players. She spent five years playing sevens in Japan, came home for a season of league with the Richmond Roses in the Auckland premiership, then broke into the Black Ferns Sevens in 2022 and stayed a regular through to 2024, when she was part of the squad that won gold at the Paris Olympics. She signed a three year deal with the Warriors in December 2024 and played eight games in the centres in her first league season, scoring two tries. She made her Kiwi Ferns debut during last year’s Pacific Championships.
Three tries in one match is therefore a considerable jump on her previous return, and it came on a night when the Warriors wore their Te Δrahi jerseys, the club’s design for the competition’s Indigenous round. Waaka, another sevens convert, has been one of the recruits Griffiths pointed to when he said before the season that the programme was measurably stronger than the one that finished 2025.
Hamilton has again proved a productive base for the women’s side, which opened the 2026 campaign there with a comfortable win over the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in early July. Playing away from Auckland has given the team a reliable crowd in the Waikato and a home ground that does not have to be shared with the men’s fixture list on the same weekend.
The Warriors have never won an NRLW title, and the club’s women’s programme has spent most of its existence either absent from the competition or rebuilding after it. A top six finish this year would be the clearest sign yet that the rebuild has taken. On the evidence of Saturday night, the pieces are there. The first half wobble, when a 10-0 lead turned into a 12-10 deficit by the break, is the part Griffiths will want tidied up before the run home.
What did you make of the Warriors women’s win over the Knights, and can they hold a top six spot through the run home? Share your thoughts 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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