{"id":588639,"date":"2026-09-03T06:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T06:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588639\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T06:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T06:16:09","slug":"prime-minister-christopher-luxon-mixes-up-waratahs-with-warriors-at-pacific-islands-forum-leaders-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/588639\/","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Christopher Luxon mixes up Waratahs with Warriors at Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Warriors will face one of the Dolphins or the Sydney Roosters in week one of the NRL finals<\/a>, while the Rabbitohs could face either the Cronulla Sharks, the Newcastle Knights or the North Queensland Cowboys, depending on the final round\u2019s results.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the Prime Minister\u2019s first embarrassing sport-related gaffe, either.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Luxon described himself as having been a Crusaders supporter \u201csince he was a small boy\u201d. In reality, the Crusaders and Super Rugby itself were not established until 1996, by which point Luxon would have been in his mid-twenties.<\/p>\n

Joking aside, though, the Prime Minister also shared his love for rugby league and his respect for the Warriors \u2013 now preparing for their third finals appearance in the four years under coach Andrew Webster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big Wahs fan,\u201d he continued. \u201cI\u2019ve been very much kindly invited into the changing rooms. I\u2019ve been there twice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big fan of Andrew Webster and what he\u2019s done building back that culture, and [chief executive] Cam George. They\u2019ve done an amazing job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a real privilege to be there. I just love the energy around the sport, I love the fact they\u2019re making it an entertaining product.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, the standard and the work rate of some of the leaders in that team have been absolutely phenomenal. When you see their performances, they\u2019re at the next level.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing NRL across the Pacific. Rugby league is really getting energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go to a rugby league game these days, it\u2019s exciting. You can take a family along, there\u2019s stuff going on, it\u2019s energetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great code, it\u2019s a growth code. Even in Samoa and Tonga, we\u2019re seeing rugby league take off. Papua New Guinea is going to be massive, they\u2019ve got the Chiefs coming on stream in 2028, some of the best players in the tournament there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting. Up the Wahs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Warriors will face one of the Dolphins or the Sydney Roosters in week one of the NRL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1975,16426,132735,13573,3096,26477,16427,2374,6722,289672,135195,111,139,69,13572,415,6327,64572,213,173001,31145,313,55856,810,191017,3006,102],"class_list":["post-588639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-at","tag-christopher","tag-embarrassing","tag-forum","tag-islands","tag-leaders","tag-luxon","tag-meeting","tag-minister","tag-mixes","tag-mixing","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pacific","tag-prime","tag-rugby","tag-slip","tag-sports","tag-strugglers","tag-suffered","tag-super","tag-tongue","tag-up","tag-waratahs","tag-warriors","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588639","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=588639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}