{"id":350496,"date":"2026-03-27T11:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/350496\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T11:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:46:10","slug":"nrl-warriors-v-wests-tigers-at-go-media-mt-smart-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/350496\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL: Warriors v Wests Tigers at Go Media Mt Smart Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Luke<\/p>\n

\nTigers wing Luke Laulilii is tackled by Warriors co-captain Mitch Barnett.
\nPhoto: Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz\n<\/p>\n

NZ Warriors have tasted a dose of reality, tumbling 32-14 to Wests Tigers at Auckland’s Go Media Stadium.<\/p>\n

After three straight wins to start their 2026 NRL season, many were daring to dream of a first-ever championship, with two of their star players – co-captain Mitch Barnett and half Luke Metcalf – back in the line-up, after mending season-ending knee injuries.<\/p>\n

Alas, they could not spark their team to victory, despite leading 10-0 after 16 minutes, through tries from centre Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and second-rower Jacob Laban, and seemingly having the visitors at their mercy.<\/p>\n

Centre Adam Pompey was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes, but the Tigers did their damage after he had returned, running in back-to-back-to-back tries to lead 16-10 at the break.<\/p>\n

They consolidated that advantage with another after the restart, before Nicoll-Klokstad gave his team some hope with 10 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Tigers scored two more of their own to rub salt into the wounds.<\/p>\n

See how the game unfolded in our blog:<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tigers wing Luke Laulilii is tackled by Warriors co-captain Mitch Barnett. Photo: Andrew Cornaga\/www.photosport.nz NZ Warriors have tasted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,213],"class_list":["post-350496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350496","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=350496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}