Warriors set for sell-out at Napier’s McLean Park

McLean Park in Napier is facing possibly its first sell-out in nine years for the Warriors first NRL match in Hawke’s Bay at the end of next week.

The match between current eighth-placed Warriors
and table-toppers the Brisbane Broncos will be played on May 27, starting at 7.30pm, with all permanent seating – about 10,200 seats in the Harris, Graeme Lowe and Centennial stands and the Chapman Pavilion – now sold, apart from some single seats.

But now most of the embankment general admission is also almost sold out, with fewer than 1000 tickets still available by late morning Monday, some corporate seating is available (including a pre-match function), and a crowd of over 15,000 is now expected – the first sellout of McLean Park since the 2014 Rugby (Union) Championship match between the All Blacks and Argentina, and the Hawke’s Bay’s first defence of the Ranfurly Shield in 2013.

It will also be a record for a rugby league match in Hawke’s Bay, surpassing the 12,500 which packed now-bygone Nelson Park, Hastings, for a 1992 NRL pre-season match involving the glamour team of the era and New Zealand favourite Manly Sea Eagles.

The expected crowd compares with the 16,676 for the Auckland-based Warriors season-opener in Wellington on March 3, and interest in the Warriors’ 2023 season has been building from the time of that winning start against Newcastle Knights.

A crowd of 23,695 was recorded for the Warriors’ April 15 match against North Queensland Cowboys at home-ground Mt Smart, where the club record is 32,174 set in the club’s first season in the NRL, in 1995.

The Broncos had their third loss in 11 games when beaten 24-16 by Melbourne Storm in Melbourne on Thursday. They are second on the competition table, albeit on points equal to the South Sydney Rabbitohs, with three losses leading on a points differential.

The Broncos have a home match against third-placed 2021 and 2022 grand final winner the Penrith Panthers in their last game before heading to Napier on a flight with 200 players, officials and supporters.

The Warriors beat the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs 24-12 in Sydney on Friday, the last outing for the Warriors before the Napier match. With a bye in week 12 of the 27-week regular season, they are eighth on a cramped table in which just four points (two wins) separates first from 10th as the 17 teams chase places in the top eight playoffs which start in the second weekend of September.

The match will also be the last before the start of the three-match Queensland-New South Wales State of Origin series, the May 31 match in Adelaide.

The Warriors are captained by Hawke’s Bay-raised Tohu Harris, who played for Melbourne Storm in the only previous NRL competition match in Hawke’s Bay, against St George Illawarra, at McLean Park in 2015. He was in the Storm’s 2017 grand final winning team, his last of 117 matches for the club before transferring to the Warriors, for whom he has now played in 88 matches.

Napier City Council events manager Kevin Murphy is delighted with the interest, saying: “It’s about what we hoped for.”