Redemption

Last week Kiwi Sports Blog advised Joel Moon to take out Justin Hodges' knee to help us beat the Broncos.  Unfortunately Moon misunderstood the message and took out his own knee, so we were missing both our first choice centres, then we lost the game.

Many non-fans lost the faith; betting agencies blew out our odds for the premiership to $9 - the longest odds of any team.  We were expected to walk into ANZ Stadium against the hottest team in the league and get soundly beaten out of the comp.  Our starting centres were Lewis Brown and...Krisnan Inu.

 

Kiwi Sports Blog's Annual NRL Finals Preview

Last year the Warriors qualified 5th on the table, following a brilliant second half of the season. We travelled to the home ground of a fearsome Gold Coast Titans team (how things change in one short season), where we lost a fight we were hardly in.  The rest of the weekend, freak results worked against us. A raging hot Raiders team in 7th place beat the Panthers, then the Greatest Game of All Time happened and the Roosters upset the Tigers from 6th place.  The Warriors, as the second-lowest ranked loser, went home from 5th place. Loyal fans everywhere were outraged.

Stink, ao.

This year we have qualified in 6th against (in my opinion) a much tougher opponent – the Broncos. Thankfully this year we are a much stronger side than last season.  We’re a legitimate powerhouse with legitimate franchise players and legitimate title aspirations. Everyone at Kiwi Sports Blog is hugely optimistic about the upcoming six weeks (there’s also that Massive Penalty Party being hosted by New Zealand over the same period, plus the return of the greatest show on turf this weekend). And that’s why, despite a hiatus of nearly four months, the printing presses at KSB headquarters are back in action for The Second Annual Kiwi Sports Blog NRL Finals PreviewTM.

Click here for the Kiwi Sports Blog Rugby World Cup Preview

The 2012 Warriors Squad (Captions)

(Hover over pictures for comments, click to ENLARGE)

The Squad

1. Glen Fisiiahi

2. Krisnan Inu

Where the Wild Things Are

Where? Penrose, this afternoon. The Beast and the Mini Beast rampaged all over the field and generally terrorised the Novacastrians.

Despite being terribly hungover, Kiwi Sports Blog spent hard earned dollars on child tickets to the Upper East stands.  Upon arriving, we were excited to hear that 'musicians' Dane Rumble and J Williams (aka "The douchebag who wouldn't give me his triple-A pass at Highlife" and "The guy that doesn't notice one of the dancers in his break-out video is sweating all over the set") were playing after the game finished.  But "Cruel" is a pretty fly song, so we briefly flirted with the idea of sticking around for it.  In the end we decided that the Fastcrew version of Dane was better and he wasn't nearly as enticing as an after-match feed at Wendy's.

State of the Faith Nation

With ten games to go in the season, the Warriors once again have it all to do to play Finals football.  Along with the Eels, we are the perennial bum boys of the NRL - we come from behind.  The NRL stats man has concluded that the magic points number to make the eighth spot will be 28.  Being on 18 points, we need to win five of our remaining ten - not a big ask for the second half chargers that are the Warriors.  But there are a couple of things making this task harder.

The First Day of the Rest of Your Season

 
This was an important one.  We needed to go into Newcastle and come out with 2 points.  It was typical Warriors football, and we got away with it 32-24.  The Raiders, Broncos, and Roosters are between us and that number 8 spot - Raiders had a 'mare on Saturday, Broncos hopped into the time machine again and smashed the powerful Rabbitohs, and hopefully Melbourne can take care of the Roosters on Monday night.  With the bye coming up next for the Warriors, followed by a possible sell-out crowd in Christchurch on June 27 to inspire them against the Roosters, the season is suddenly back in good shape.