The date is carved into the memory of every Original Faithful. Thirty thousand people packed into a freshly refurbished Mt Smart Stadium to watch history. The Auckland Warriors — New Zealand’s first professional rugby league club in the Australian competition — took the field against the Brisbane Broncos. They led 22–10. The crowd was delirious. Then Brisbane came back. The final score was 25–22.
It was a loss. But it was the beginning of everything.
That season, a young halfback named Stacey Jones scored a try on debut in a 40–4 demolition of Parramatta. The Warriors finished 10th. They missed the finals by two competition points — two points stripped away for a technicality in a match they had won 46–12. The injustice of it still echoes. But so does the promise of what was to come.
