\u201cI\u2019m playing with a lot of confidence now, and that\u2019s just instilled through me by the boys I have in front of me, especially Erin Clark. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great player, and the work he does with me and the confidence he gives me to play my footy is amazing. He\u2019s a really big driver for me to come out of my shell and to put my best footy on. <\/p>\n
Tanner Stowers-Smith attributes his 2026 form surge to the help of teammate Erin Clark. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got Fordy [Jackson Ford], Fish [Fisher-Harris] and Barney [Barnett] who I look up to a lot, and who drive me to live up to their standard each week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m loving footy at the moment, and those boys really put a big impact on how I\u2019ve been playing this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a game marred by controversy, with referee Gerrard Sutton awarding an early penalty to the Sharks for a Chanel Harris-Tavita time violation before a goal-line dropout.<\/p>\n
Sutton told Harris-Tavita he had five seconds to make the kick, but the buzzer went off a couple of seconds later. <\/p>\n
Sutton awarded the penalty anyway, causing Warriors coach Andrew Webster to label the incident \u201cembarrassing\u201d and \u201cunprofessional\u201d<\/a> in the post-match press conference.<\/p>\n Later in the contest, Warriors halfback Te Maire Martin had a field goal attempt charged down minutes before Sharks five-eighth Braydon Trindall kicked the winner.<\/p>\n Warriors centre Adam Pompey had a chance to tie the match<\/a>, but missed a penalty kick on the final play.<\/p>\n Stowers-Smith said the Sharks executed under pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cJust big moments that changed the game, or they capitalised on. <\/p>\n \u201cThey came to play, and obviously had a really good game plan about how they were going to go about their footy. They dominated us in periods too.\u201d<\/p>\n On the bright side, the Warriors debuted New South Wales Cup hooker Makaia Tafua, who Stowers-Smith praised highly.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought he killed it. A really young squad, a lot of our big dogs out, but we never took that as any excuse and never had a different mindset. We all know whoever steps in the jersey can do a really good job.<\/p>\n \u201cHe [Webster] was proud, but it was just moments in the game where they took opportunities, and we need to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n The Warriors will debut at Christchurch\u2019s Te Kaha Stadium on Sunday when they host the North Queensland Cowboys.<\/p>\n Nathan Limm<\/a> has been a journalist with Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald since 2020. He covered the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, hosts The Big League Podcast<\/a> and commentates rugby and netball for Gold Sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m playing with a lot of confidence now, and that\u2019s just instilled through me by the boys I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[71864,8834,18788,111444,543,6023,8650,16555,14731,111,139,577,69,3800,60617,213,241496,1886,1515,140313,97592,223,61,3006],"class_list":["post-480050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-attributes","tag-big","tag-clark","tag-clarks","tag-driven","tag-erin","tag-explained","tag-form","tag-league","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-podcast","tag-prop","tag-sports","tag-stowerssmith","tag-support","tag-surge","tag-tanner","tag-teammate","tag-the","tag-to","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480050","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=480050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Andrew Webster was critical of a controversial call in the Warriors’ defeat to the Sharks. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Makaia Tafua made his NRL debut against the Sharks. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n