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\n Kodi Nikorima with the ball for the Dolphins up against his former team the Broncos.
\n \u00a9Scott Davis \/ NRL Images
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Kodi Nikorima knows a thing or two about Queensland rivalries and he’d love nothing more than to help the Dolphins start setting the record straight against the Broncos.<\/p>\n
Back in 2015 in his debut season, Nikorima came off the bench in Brisbane’s grand final loss to the Cowboys – a team they had dominated for the first nine years of their rivalry.<\/p>\n
After entering the competition in 1995, it took the Cowboys until the 2004 finals series to finally beat ‘big brother’, but by 2015 they were NRL champions after winning a grand final for the ages.<\/p>\n
Wind the clock forward to 2023 and Nikorima was part of the Dolphins’ inaugural season, having made the move north from the Rabbitohs.<\/p>\n
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Broncos v Dolphins: Round 4<\/p>\n
The NRL newbies exploded out of the blocks with wins over the Roosters, Raiders and Knights before taking on the Broncos for the first time in a Friday night barnburner at Suncorp Stadium.<\/p>\n
With former Broncos Jamayne Isaako, Brenko Lee, Jarrod Wallace, Anthony Milford, Tesi Niu and Nikorima in their ranks, the Dolphins more than held their own, leading 12-8 with 10 minutes to play before tries to Kurt Capewell and Kotoni Staggs got Brisbane home.<\/p>\n
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Crazy Finishes: Dolphins v Broncos – Round 4, 2023<\/p>\n
They may have been the ‘away’ team that night but Staggs’ emotional ‘this is our home’ celebration after his match-winning try ensured the Battle of Brisbane would be compelling viewing from that day forward.<\/p>\n
This Friday’s game will be the seventh meeting, with the Dolphins’ only win \u2013 a big 40-6 result \u2013 coming back in Round 26, 2024 to effectively end the Broncos’ chances of playing finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve obviously got the wood on us, they\u2019re the reigning champs, it’s always a big game,\u201d Nikorima said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously you want to do well against your old teams and they\u2019re one of mine, so it\u2019s definitely one I look at when the draw comes out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say there\u2019s hatred but when you\u2019re out there playing you want to do your best and you don\u2019t want the opposition to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\n Kodi Nikorima with the ball for the Dolphins up against his former team the Broncos.
\n \u00a9Scott Davis \/ NRL Images
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\u201cIt is another game, but there\u2019s a lot more crowd that turn up too, so that makes it more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as Staggs’ emotions bubbled over in that first encounter in 2023, so too Dolphins enforcer Ray Stone admits to feeling an extra edge when the co-tenants clash at The Cauldron.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve gotten emotional in the past and it just gets the better of me, so I just try to keep it as laid back as possible leading into it,” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always want to play the best teams and you want to play them at their best so not having Haas there is different but we’re focused on ourselves and we’re trying to improve from our game last week.”<\/p>\n
The Broncos welcome back skipper Adam Reynolds from a rib injury as they look to build on a courageous come from behind win in last week’s grand final rematch against the Storm.<\/p>\n
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A 30 metre spiral onto the chest<\/p>\n
The battle between Reynolds and Ezra Mam and Dolphins duo Nikorima and Isaiya Katoa promises to be a highlight, with Brisbane’s old master looking to get one over the Dolphins’ young gun.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot we can grow on together,\u201d Nikorima said of his burgeoning partnership with Katoa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s early rounds and you\u2019ve seen with the new rule changes and six-agains, the team that completes the most does well. We\u2019ll keep building.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kodi Nikorima knows a thing or two about Queensland rivalries and he’d love nothing more than to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-347272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}