Luke Hanson has played two games of first grade rugby league. On Saturday night at Accor Stadium in Sydney, in the last play of the match, the Warriors rookie lined up a field goal from about 30 metres out and put it through the middle. It made the score 45 to 26 over South Sydney. It also, by the barest arithmetic imaginable, put his club on top of the NRL ladder.
The Warriors are now level on 38 competition points with the Penrith Panthers and the Sydney Roosters. What separates them from Penrith is a single point of for and against. The Warriors have scored 295 more points than they have conceded this season. Penrith have scored 294 more. Hanson’s one pointer, kicked with the game already won, is the difference between first and second.
It was the Warriors’ fourth straight win and their biggest points tally of the season. According to the Australian Associated Press match report, no NRL game had ever finished 45 to 26 before.
Coach Andrew Webster said afterwards that the kick was not planned, but the thinking behind it was. “As a team we weren’t saying let’s go kick a field goal because we need to,” Webster said. “We said every point’s going to matter from here to the end. Once we kicked it we knew as staff, but I don’t know if the players knew. You’d have to ask Luke, he’s a pretty smart guy.”
Webster was careful not to make too much of where his team sat when he spoke. “It might not be for too long and you only want to be on top at the end,” he said. “That’s why we didn’t mention for and against between now and then. We could win all our games and it could look different at the end.”
He was right to be cautious. The third placed Roosters, on the same 38 points but with a much slimmer for and against of 163, have a game in hand and play the Wests Tigers on Sunday afternoon. A win there takes them back to the top and pushes the Warriors down to second before most New Zealanders have finished their Sunday dinner. The Gold Coast and Cronulla also play on Sunday.
What the Warriors have done is give themselves a genuine shot at something they have managed only once in 31 seasons. The club won the minor premiership in 2002, clinching it in the final round, then lost the grand final 30 to 8 to the Roosters at Telstra Stadium in October that year. The Roosters scored the last four tries of that match without reply. It remains the only time the Warriors have finished a regular season at the top of the table.
The run home is kind. Both of the Warriors’ remaining games are at Go Media Stadium, against Newcastle and then Manly, two teams sitting in the middle of the table. Penrith face Canterbury and the Wests Tigers. The Roosters, after Sunday, meet the Dolphins and South Sydney. A top two finish would give the Warriors a home final in week one of the play offs and a second chance if they lose it.
The match itself was a study in the Warriors doing something well and then very nearly undoing it. They led 26 to 8 at half time through tries to co-captains James Fisher-Harris and Mitchell Barnett, to Leka Halasima off a towering bomb from Chanel Harris-Tavita, and to Harris-Tavita himself. Taine Tuaupiki kicked all four conversions and added a penalty. Hooker Wayde Egan was the one pulling the strings, with both front rower tries coming off his subtle work close to the line.
Harris-Tavita was wearing the number seven jersey, a spot he does not usually occupy, because the Warriors have run short of fit playmakers. That is also why Hanson was there at all. He was introduced into the halves for just his second start.
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak stretched the lead further in the 45th minute, diving over in the corner, and came off holding his shoulder. Early reports suggested an AC joint injury, which would be an unwelcome complication for a side heading into finals football with its outside backs already stretched.
South Sydney took their chance. Alex Johnston, Cody Walker and Tallis Duncan all crossed inside 12 minutes and Jayden Sullivan converted each of them after missing both his first half attempts. The lead was down to six points with 20 minutes to go and the Warriors were in trouble. Then Jacob Laban and Alofiana Khan-Pereira went over late, and Hanson finished it.
For the Rabbitohs it was their first loss at Accor Stadium this season and a costly one. A win would have locked up a top eight finish. Instead they now have to beat the Gold Coast or the Roosters in their last two games to make the play offs at all.
Coach Wayne Bennett was blunt about his own team. “What’s between their ears? We’re not real smart at different times out there,” Bennett said. “I’m talking about the game generally. A lot of things put us under pressure, but I’m never disappointed in the effort.”
The win capped a week for Webster that would be hard to improve on. It was his 100th game as an NRL head coach, and it came days after he signed a four year contract extension that will make him the longest serving coach in the club’s history. RNZ reported that the Warriors are well placed to push for a top two finish with both remaining games at home.
Whether they are still on top by Sunday night is out of their hands. Whether they are on top at the end of the season is not.
Do you think this is the year the Warriors finally go all the way, or is topping the ladder in August the easy part? Let us know 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 🙂
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