One New Zealand Warriors head coach Andrew Webster has named an identical 22-man squad for the club’s final home game of the regular season against Parramatta at Go Media Stadium on Friday night (8.00pm kick-off; match day sponsor: One New Zealand).
The sold-out round 26 fixture is also the stage for the Warriors’ annual old boys’ reunion with a large of contingent of former players in attendance as the 2025 team seeks to firm up its place in the top four in the second to last round of the campaign.
Webster has submitted the same 17 used in last Saturday night’s convincing 32-18 win over the Gold Coast Titans; he has also retained the same five players on the extended bench.
As was the case last week 21-year-old Demitric Vaimauga has been named to start in the front row although he was ultimately switched to the interchange with 2025 rookie prop Tanner Stowers-Smith having his first run-on appearance after being used off the bench in his first nine outings.
The Warriors go into the match back in fourth spot after their victory in Robina saw them climb above the Cronulla Sutherland Sharks. It means the club has now been in the top four – running as high as second – for 19 rounds so far.
Friday night’s match will be hooker Wayde Egan’s 149th career appearance leaving him in line to reach his 150-game milestone in the final regular season clash against the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles in Sydney on Friday week.
Adam Pompey, Marata Niukore, Leka Halasima and Erin Clark haven’t missed a game all season as they eye their 23rd consecutive appearances. More than that, the 27-year-old Pompey has been on the field every single minute of the 662 minutes the Warriors have played so far.
With three tries in the back-to-back wins over the Dragons and Titans, Pompey is level with Halasima as the team’s second equal highest try scorer, one behind Roger Tuivasa-Sheck who has 11 after his double last week. It’s comfortably a career-best try-scoring return for the 116-game campaigner Pompey with his previous best being five in 2020, 2022 and 2023.
The Warriors face a Parramatta side coming off an impressive 30-10 win over top eight hopefuls the Sydney Roosters. The Eels sit 14th on the ladder on 22 points but have been much improved over the latter part of the season including a 22-20 win over Brisbane.
The Warriors and the Eels have been infrequent opponents with this being the eighth year on end that they’ve faced each other just once. The last home and away matches were in 2017.
They’ve also built a strong record against the Warriors with six wins in the last eight contests.