Cameron George and Dave Rennie. Photo / NZ Herald
While the Warriors are enjoying a reign as New Zealand’s premier professional sporting team, things could have been so much different were it not for the help of a former Wallabies coach.
In 2021, as the Kiwi side played out their second season of a Covid-enforced exile in Australia, the Warriors season ended with an implosion.
With nothing to play for, the Warriors lost all composure, let in eight tries without scoring, and most embarrassingly saw the trio of Kane Evans, Matt Lodge and Jazz Tevaga sent to the sin bin for an on-field brawl against the Gold Coast Titans.
Something was seriously wrong at the club. This was a team without a home, and most importantly, without an identity, representing a loyal fanbase that had backed them without any tangible reward through a global pandemic.
Warriors chief executive Cameron George makes no bones of the fact it was the lowest moment of his career.
“It indicated to me [that] we’d lost everything,” he told the Herald. “We’d lost our way.
“We just needed help. It wasn’t an authentic Warriors culture.
“I had to make a decision. How quickly can we get something to put in place? What is that something to put in place to save the club?”
With no certainty over the Warriors’ future, and with all signs pointing to a third straight season stuck in Australia, something needed to change.
However, that help wasn’t far away.
In late 2021, Kiwi Dave Rennie was in charge of the Wallabies, after pulling out of the race to succeed Sir Steve Hansen as head coach of the All Blacks.
History will show a torrid time for Rennie in Australia, before his firing at the start of 2023 - even if his replacement Eddie Jones fared much worse.
However, his success with the Chiefs in Super Rugby and dominance at Under-20 level with New Zealand’s “Baby Blacks” proved Rennie’s methods were exceptional.
And after being given a steer in the right direction, George wasted no time in sounding out Rennie to help forge an identity from which the Warriors could form a new, needed, culture.
“He was unbelievable in terms of being so welcoming to the opportunity to speak to him,” George said of Rennie.
“It was the best thing I ever did. He helped me navigate through that time, and then develop a plan around how to pull the culture back together, and create the identity we needed.
“One of the questions I asked him - he was coach of the Wallabies at the time, who, like us, have multiple cultures within it while representing in his case a country - [was] how does he do it?
“He was so open and transparent on his experiences, what has worked, what hasn’t worked, why certain things would work for the Warriors.
“It is, without doubt, probably the turning point to creating a pathway forward for our identity.
“To this day, all because of that discussion, we have an amazing culture internally that we share, players and staff are so attached to, and it’s relevant to us every day.”
While Rennie had no experience in rugby league or the NRL, his situation wasn’t dissimilar to what George and the Warriors were going through.
Like the Warriors, he too was stuck in Australia, away from his loved ones in order to do his job.
And that understanding, with his own experiences in tow, forged a connection between Rennie and George that helped put the Warriors on the right path.
“He was so supportive and considerate. He was really spot on with his advice, and really caring about the advice he was offering.
“Not only on that day, he was there after checking in.
“He didn’t tell me how to do it, but he just gave me confidence that if I wanted to do it, these are some of the lessons he’s learned, and what he’s achieved by doing these things.
“He gave me a clear - I suppose - manual of difficult circumstances from his experience, on how to get through it. It created a lot of what we stand for now, and how we got through it.”
But while Rennie’s advice and guidance was welcome, it wasn’t a quick fix.
The Warriors continued to play out 2022 based in Australia and endured one of the worst seasons in the club’s history.
On the field, the Warriors finished second-from-bottom on the NRL ladder, with just six wins from 24 games.
Off the field, coach Nathan Brown, star player Reece Walsh, and the likes of Lodge and edge forward Euan Aitken all decided they wanted out of the club, with none wanting to relocate to New Zealand.
Slowly but surely, though, the Warriors began to reshape the club for the future.
The capture of Andrew Webster as head coach from 2023 has proven to be a masterstroke, evidenced by re-signing him for a further three years after just one season.
Meanwhile, the additions of Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Te Maire Martin added more of a Kiwi feel to the club’s roster.
And even with the Warriors unable to convince some Australian players of the value of living in New Zealand, the likes of Mitchell Barnett and Jackson Ford haven’t taken a backwards step since their respective moves across the Tasman.
Most importantly, though, when the Warriors returned to Mt Smart and notched a 22-2 victory over the Wests Tigers, a capacity crowd showed the club had a supporter base to build on. Once the Warriors were able to return home for good, everything was in place for the success seen in 2024 and beyond.
“We’re so unique to other clubs, we’re a special culture in New Zealand,” said George. “The Warriors are just so different.
“We had players playing for us who’d never played at our home base, never connected to our homeland and what we stood for and so on.
“Everything Dave was telling me wasn’t going to be a lightbulb moment that happened overnight. It was about putting things in place that could gradually get better at, underpinned for when we got home.
“All those things we talked about and put in place, when we got home permanently, all started to matter, all started to take place, it made me understand more and more how right he was.
“But it wasn’t until we were going to get home that we could get home and really benefit from it. It was never going to happen overnight.
“It wasn’t until we got home that we were able to really lock it in and start to build strongly on it and represent it.”
Since then, just about everything the Warriors touch turns to gold.
Last year saw the club return to the NRL finals for the first time since 2018.
In his first year, Webster led the Warriors to a top-four finish, with 16 regular-season wins and another semifinal thrashing of the Newcastle Knights in the post-season for good measure. His success was recognised with the NRL’s Dally M coach of the year award.
Shaun Johnson came within a single point of winning the same honour as a player, but ultimately lost out to Kalyn Ponga.
And to show things aren’t slowing down at Mt Smart any time soon, the Warriors have just stunned the NRL by capturing Kiwis captain and arguably the best prop in the game, James Fisher-Harris, who’ll arrive on a four-year deal in 2025.
As the first-grade side continues to make waves in the NRL, with sell-out after sell-out at Mt Smart, the club’s Under-17 side have reached the final of their Harold Matthews Cup competition, in a sign that success can continue into the future.
While rugby union has history as New Zealand’s sporting code, rugby league is taking steps to make sure it has the future.
But while Rennie himself has moved on to coach in Japan with the Kobe Steelers, George would waste no time in welcoming him back to the club - but it won’t be in any kind of coaching role.
“I can tell you, this door is always open for Dave to come in here to have a beer or a coffee, or be around our club,” George concluded.
Alex Powell is an Online Sports Editor for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016, and previously worked for both Newshub and 1News.
The two-time Olympic gold medallist joins the renewed franchise.