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Silver lining to Warriors' Eden Park defeat
Sport Nation • September 21st, 2026 11:49 am
Warriors fans packed out Eden Park | Photo: Brett Phibbs/Photosport
The Warriors may have fallen short against the Knights on the scoreboard, but their defeat at Eden Park still produced one of the club’s biggest wins in history.
The NRL decided it would move the fixture from the club's home at Go Media Stadium to accommodate almost 50,000 fans.
Historically speaking, Eden Park has been a venue of limited success for the Warriors, a trend that continued on Sunday as they suffered their sixth loss in seven games at the ground, further deepening the hoodoo.
However, The Finals Countdown host Sam Ackerman praised Eden Park for delivering an outstanding game day experience that united New Zealanders.
“The stadium could not have done it better, legitimately could not have done it better,” Ackerman said on Monday.
“There was largely a great environment in the crowd. The fan day was superb. All the roads shut off around it, the fans lining the street to welcome the team buses in as they came."
“I don't think I saw one person not wearing some kind of Warriors merch for the entire time.
“You could tell there were new fans amongst that, but they were new fans with buy-in. They jumped on. They saw what was up. They grabbed the flag. They grabbed a scarf, a beanie, whatever.”
And it didn’t stop there.
“The stadium filed in well, filed out well. Everything went absolutely hunky-dory in that.
“The sound was great. The halftime show with Savage was legit. The energy levels for the crowd were staggeringly good at Eden Park.
“Congratulations to Eden Park, as I'm saying, they could not have done that occasion any better.
“That said, we can never go back there. There's a hoodoo," he joked after watching scoreboard history repeat itself.
Scotty & Izzy co-host Scotty Stevenson pointed to the club’s ability to connect with people beyond traditional rugby league supporters and attract new fans, particularly children.
“Regardless of what happened last night at Eden Park, in terms of the scoreboard, 48,000 people tells you the story of this club,” he explained.
“We’ll get hung up on the result for sure, but you have to look a little bit deeper about what success is supposed to look like.”
The Warriors’ season may be over, but Stevenson said chief executive Cam George and the club should take enormous pride in the occasion they created.
“That's our success story because those scenes yesterday were awesome.”
Listen to the full segment below:
