Warriors won’t be left smarting: Plan B already in pipeline

The Warriors have already made alternative plans for their scheduled Mt Smart matches this year, should it prove impossible to stage the games in New Zealand.

After not playing on home soil since August 2019, the club are hopeful of a long-awaited return in 2022, with five matches planned for Auckland between June and September.

But there is a growing unease associated with those fixtures, with no certainty around open transtasman travel since the emergence of the Covid Omicron variant.

The Warriors remain optimistic but have already formulated another option to play those games in Brisbane.

“I’ve got Plan B all sorted, it’s just when you pull the trigger on one or the other,” Warriors chief executive Cameron George told the Weekend Herald. “Plan B is ready to activate any time we don’t have confidence in going back to New Zealand. It will be in Redcliffe, where we are based.

“Obviously our desire and want is to go to New Zealand, but if the Government don’t permit that, we’ll just go with the other plan.

“I’m not going to muck around and sit and hope and pray . . .it’s in the hands of the Government.”

The Warriors’ first homecoming match is scheduled against NRL champions Penrith on June 18.

The other opponents planned for New Zealand are the Wests Tigers ( July 3), Storm ( July 29), Bulldogs (August 12) and Titans (September 3).

The Warriors, who open their season against the Dragons on March 12, have explored the possibility of border exemptions, with the assistance of Sport New Zealand, but have been told none will be forthcoming.

After being based across the Tasman for the 2020 season, the club initially hoped to return home in mid-June last year. That plan was scuppered by a Covid outbreak which closed the transtasman bubble.

A one-off match, partly to honour departing skipper Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, was then scheduled for August 15 against the Bulldogs before being canned.

A return on June 18 this year would end a 1023-day drought between home fixtures but the club will take a watch-and-wait approach.

“We have to be careful not to get too far into the year before we make any changes,” said George. “Not just for us and our fans, but there is a whole raft of elements to the game day, not least the opposing team.”

George is in “constant communication” with the NRL, as things evolve on both sides of the Tasman.

“We will have to have complete confidence that we are not going to be stranded . . . and we can’t have any form of quarantine,” said George

“There’s no timeline [for a change], it’s just if you know that it’s not going to work. It could be in March, it could be in May, but I won’t be sitting there in June with fingers crossed, put it that way.

“The border is shut right now, so unless there is a significant change in the Government’s thinking, Plan B is ready to go, but we have our fingers crossed and are raring to go back to New Zealand.”

Bringing games to Mt Smart in 2022 is crucial for financial and football reasons, as well as the ability to reconnect with fans, sponsors and local staff.

Warriors chairman Rob Croot told the Herald last year the club has lost millions since the start of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, partly due to the significant decrease in game day revenues and associated marketing opportunities.

“We have done everything required, had the vaccinations, testing every day, the NRL protocols are very strict,” said George.

“Now it’s out of our hands and we are not even thinking about [going home] at the moment. We are just training, looking forward to round one. There is no use getting excited about it yet because we’ve been hurt before,” he said.

“We have a plan to go there and hopefully we get closer to it happening, but right now, there’s not much we can do.”