September 5, 2026 • 11 mins
The pressure's on for the Warriors ahead of the NRL finals, but they managed to make history last night.
The 31-30 win over the Manly Sea Eagles at Mt Smart ensures they've recorded the club's most-ever wins in an NRL regular season.
Warriors assistant coach Richard Agar joined Piney to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Pine
from Newstalk ZB. Waiting, waiting, and the Warriors win the
game in their final regular season game in 2026.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
The Warriors win it by one. Yeah, the 31-30 victory
over Manly yesterday, the Warriors' 18th win of the season.
They now wait for the Penrith Tigers game later on today.
That's a six o'clock kickoff New Zealand time to see
if they've claimed the minor premiership for just the second
time or will finish in second place. A Penrith win
by three points or more secures them the minor premiership.
(00:52):
Any other result, we'll see the Warriors claim the regular
season silverware. If the Warriors finish top, they'll host the
Roosters in a qualifying final next weekend. If the Warriors
finish second, they will host the Dolphins. Assistant coach of
the side is Rich Agar, who joins us now. Rich,
congratulations to you and the team on making club history.
18 wins this season, 10 wins from 12 at home.
(01:17):
How much satisfaction do you take from the regular season
before we start talking about the finals?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hi, Jason. Thanks for having me on, mate. Yeah, we're
proud of our efforts. I can't see Penrith slipping up tonight,
to be perfectly honest. But nonetheless, for it to come
down to points difference, I think when we would have
set off at the start of the year, everybody got
high hopes, high expectations. We always internally talk about setting
(01:46):
the bar high and shooting for the stars. And 27 rounds, mate,
is a long, attritional season. And there's always some bumps
in the road along the way, but we've put ourselves
in a really good position. It's good to be able
to get those little history markers about points in the season,
(02:10):
home wins, points scored, stuff like that. But ultimately, we've
put ourselves in a position to have a crack at
the big prize, which is what it's all about for
us from here on in.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You mentioned it being an attritional season. You did right.
You've had to use 30 players across your 24 matches,
and you've had some big players miss large chunks of
the season. How challenging has the attritional nature of the
season been for the coaching staff?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, very challenging. You want to get to this part
of the year and sort of get everybody to the
start line as much as you can, fit and fresh. But,
you know, over the course of our season, it's been
very well documented, obviously, We've had to change our half-back
a fair bit. Losing an experienced, quality player like Roger
(02:58):
Tuivasa-Shek has not been easy. And even as we're coming
into these final weeks, we lost Alan and a couple
of other guys that we took care of a little
bit yesterday. But we're no different to any other club.
But I certainly think the reason that we are sat
where we are in the league standings at the moment
(03:19):
is because of the strength and depth and I guess
the investment and the quality of some of our younger
guys that, you know, two, three, four pre-seasons in. The
club have had a plan. We've had some, you know,
we've had stability throughout the club and we're starting to,
you know, we're starting to sort of bear the fruit
of it now that these young guys are turning into
(03:42):
top-line NRL players.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
On the flip side of that, Rich, you look at
the players who have been there the whole time. I
look at Aaron Clark. He started every single game. Jacob
Laban has played in every single game. Wade Egan's only
missed one, and that was yesterday, and I presume selectorial.
How key have those guys been, the ones who haven't
been injured, the ones who have been there the whole time?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, well, just the three guys that you mentioned. You know,
Wade is obviously very much key to how we play
in our attack, and it was just an opportune time
to rest in, but he's had a wonderful season. Aaron
Clark is, you know, he got Dallium Locker of the
Year last year, and, you know, it's a personal opinion,
(04:25):
but I'm pretty adamant that this season is sort of
eclipsed what he turned out last year. You know, I
feel he's had a stronger season. He's grown, not only in,
you know, the output and the quality of his performances,
you know, the way he's enhancing his game but also
(04:48):
in his leadership you know he's highly motivated in the
minute Aaron to you know to finish his season off
in the right way and I think Jacob is you
know along with guys like Dimitri Kelly and Lekker Jacob's
just a prime example of a kid that's come in
and just grown in stature and feels so much more
(05:10):
confident and at home in the NRL now and The
strides that he's made this year have been hugely impressive.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Just a word on yesterday's game. You led 24-12, then
were 30-24 behind, got back level with a converted try,
then the field goal from Chanel Harris-Tivetta to give you
the one-point win. How do you sum up yesterday's performance?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Not that easy, really. It was a funny old game because...
You know, you look at the stats. We had a
look at some stats this morning. I think we spent
about eight minutes of the game inside their 20. They've
spent literally, I think, 48 seconds inside of ours. So,
you know, we've completely dominated the field position and the
(05:58):
territory and possession. I think we're around 60-40, something like that. Yeah.
We limited some of their sets to really low meters,
but we had a bad day on the edges. There's
no doubt about that, and that's an area that I
feel we've probably lacked a little bit of cohesion and continuity.
(06:19):
With some guys coming back that have not played for
a couple of weeks, we plain and simply got some
decisions wrong. With a team that's got a player like
Tom Travojevic and some of the speed that they've got
on the outside, it would have been a bad day
to get it wrong as well. So I actually feel
that the closeness of the score and the fact that
(06:42):
we had some bad moments on the edge that led
to really long-range tries or long-range breaks probably took away from, actually,
there were plenty of good things about our game yesterday
as well. But having said that, you know, what we've
seen over the last couple of weeks, you know, we're
going to have to make an improvement to the way
(07:04):
that we, you know, I guess conceded at times yesterday,
but we're confident we can do that too.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, and in those three games, the last three, Rich,
you've had three different right wingers, three different centre combinations
and three different halves combinations. And you mentioned continuity there or,
you know, an inability to have that continuity because of injury.
Is that one of the main reasons that the edge
defence has been a little inconsistent for you?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, definitely in some ways. You know, I'll point to
the South Sydney game. We lost Allen. We had to
shift Adam Pompey to right wing. We had Eddie Ermeyer
playing right centre along with Luke Hansen in his, I think,
his second or third game of first grade. So it's
not just a continuity. We had some inexperience in there
too and we had some guys playing out of position.
(07:51):
So I think when you throw everything into the pot,
that's certainly a factor. But nonetheless, we... We probably, you
could say at times, got from a little bit too
passive to a bit too aggressive with it. We've just
got to find the right balance on what works for
us and look for the right cues when it's time
(08:12):
to go and shut some of those plays down. But
as I say, we had some real good examples of
us doing it yesterday, but we got a couple of
them wrong back-to-back, which really hurts.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
As you said, I think it's most likely that Penrith
will beat the West Tigers later on today. That would
feed you into a qualifying final against the Dolphins. Are
they in good form? No getting away from that. Seven
straight wins. You had a narrow win over them in
Wellington in round eight. They reversed that with a narrow
win at Suncorp in round 17. They feel like a
(08:46):
team you're very closely matched with. How do you feel
like you match up with them in a knockout game?
It won't be a knockout game, but a finals game.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I think whoever's in the top eight regardless, you're going
to come up again at a good side. And in
this first round, you're going to play a team in
the top four. So if indeed it is the Dolphins,
we've had some terrific games with them over the last
couple of seasons, real close and actually real good games
(09:17):
and some quality football play. But yeah, they're confident. They're
healthy at the moment. And they've got a really good
spine and they've got some speed and some guys that,
you know, beat tackles and break tackles. So we wouldn't
expect anything any different at this stage of the year. But,
(09:38):
you know, we will be very much, you know, we'll
do our diligence on them, but we're very much concentrating
on ourselves, fixing up. fixing up some of the things
we need to look at, but also doubling down on
what we know wins us games. I'm not sure how
many games we've actually won on the trot at the moment.
You probably look at both teams and think they're both
(10:01):
in a decent run of form. And as I say,
at this stage of the year, if you want to
make an NRL grand final, you're going to have to
knock some good teams off.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
You've won six in a row, Rich. Six in a
row and eight of your last nine. There you go. See,
this is how focused you are on a game-to-game basis.
You don't even know how many games in a row
you've won, which I think is a good thing.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Six in a row.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
We're just getting done and we've already looked at it today.
We've put the review to bed. From an assistant coach
point of view, we've had to prepare for two teams
this week. So it's been double the work for us,
to be honest. So that might be why I lost
count of that. But yeah, until I guess 8 o'clock tonight,
(10:46):
we'll not be sure what day we're playing and again who.
So yeah, I'm with you. Look, I feel... I feel
three points, again, a Tigers team that probably not got
as much to play for. With the greatest respect, I
feel Penrith will probably overcome that points difference. And yeah,
it certainly looks like a home tie against the Dolphins
(11:08):
at the moment. All right.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well, it's a piece of history with 18 wins in
a regular season for you, Rich. Yeah, we'll find out
in a few hours who you're playing next week, and
then you can start your planning in earnest. Always appreciate
you taking the time for a chat to us, mate.
All the best as well for the week ahead and
for a big finals match at home next weekend.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, much appreciated, Jason. Thanks for having me on, mate,
and good to chat.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, good to chat, Rich. Rich Agar, assistant coach of
the Warriors, always very level with his analysis and his thinking.
I think that It kind of permeates across the entire
coaching staff. It doesn't matter who you talk to, whether
it's Andrew Webster, Stacey Jones, Rich Agar, Slade Griffin. They're
all very level, aren't they? Which is probably the secret, really,
(11:52):
in many ways.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Pine
from Newstalk ZB. Waiting, waiting, and the Warriors win the
game in their final regular season game in 2026.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
The Warriors win it by one. Yeah, the 31-30 victory
over Manly yesterday, the Warriors' 18th win of the season.
They now wait for the Penrith Tigers game later on today.
That's a six o'clock kickoff New Zealand time to see
if they've claimed the minor premiership for just the second
time or will finish in second place. A Penrith win
by three points or more secures them the minor premiership.
(00:52):
Any other result, we'll see the Warriors claim the regular
season silverware. If the Warriors finish top, they'll host the
Roosters in a qualifying final next weekend. If the Warriors
finish second, they will host the Dolphins. Assistant coach of
the side is Rich Agar, who joins us now. Rich,
congratulations to you and the team on making club history.
18 wins this season, 10 wins from 12 at home.
(01:17):
How much satisfaction do you take from the regular season
before we start talking about the finals?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hi, Jason. Thanks for having me on, mate. Yeah, we're
proud of our efforts. I can't see Penrith slipping up tonight,
to be perfectly honest. But nonetheless, for it to come
down to points difference, I think when we would have
set off at the start of the year, everybody got
high hopes, high expectations. We always internally talk about setting
(01:46):
the bar high and shooting for the stars. And 27 rounds, mate,
is a long, attritional season. And there's always some bumps
in the road along the way, but we've put ourselves
in a really good position. It's good to be able
to get those little history markers about points in the season,
(02:10):
home wins, points scored, stuff like that. But ultimately, we've
put ourselves in a position to have a crack at
the big prize, which is what it's all about for
us from here on in.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
You mentioned it being an attritional season. You did right.
You've had to use 30 players across your 24 matches,
and you've had some big players miss large chunks of
the season. How challenging has the attritional nature of the
season been for the coaching staff?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, very challenging. You want to get to this part
of the year and sort of get everybody to the
start line as much as you can, fit and fresh. But,
you know, over the course of our season, it's been
very well documented, obviously, We've had to change our half-back
a fair bit. Losing an experienced, quality player like Roger
(02:58):
Tuivasa-Shek has not been easy. And even as we're coming
into these final weeks, we lost Alan and a couple
of other guys that we took care of a little
bit yesterday. But we're no different to any other club.
But I certainly think the reason that we are sat
where we are in the league standings at the moment
(03:19):
is because of the strength and depth and I guess
the investment and the quality of some of our younger
guys that, you know, two, three, four pre-seasons in. The
club have had a plan. We've had some, you know,
we've had stability throughout the club and we're starting to,
you know, we're starting to sort of bear the fruit
of it now that these young guys are turning into
(03:42):
top-line NRL players.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
On the flip side of that, Rich, you look at
the players who have been there the whole time. I
look at Aaron Clark. He started every single game. Jacob
Laban has played in every single game. Wade Egan's only
missed one, and that was yesterday, and I presume selectorial.
How key have those guys been, the ones who haven't
been injured, the ones who have been there the whole time?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, well, just the three guys that you mentioned. You know,
Wade is obviously very much key to how we play
in our attack, and it was just an opportune time
to rest in, but he's had a wonderful season. Aaron
Clark is, you know, he got Dallium Locker of the
Year last year, and, you know, it's a personal opinion,
(04:25):
but I'm pretty adamant that this season is sort of
eclipsed what he turned out last year. You know, I
feel he's had a stronger season. He's grown, not only in,
you know, the output and the quality of his performances,
you know, the way he's enhancing his game but also
(04:48):
in his leadership you know he's highly motivated in the
minute Aaron to you know to finish his season off
in the right way and I think Jacob is you
know along with guys like Dimitri Kelly and Lekker Jacob's
just a prime example of a kid that's come in
and just grown in stature and feels so much more
(05:10):
confident and at home in the NRL now and The
strides that he's made this year have been hugely impressive.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Just a word on yesterday's game. You led 24-12, then
were 30-24 behind, got back level with a converted try,
then the field goal from Chanel Harris-Tivetta to give you
the one-point win. How do you sum up yesterday's performance?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Not that easy, really. It was a funny old game because...
You know, you look at the stats. We had a
look at some stats this morning. I think we spent
about eight minutes of the game inside their 20. They've
spent literally, I think, 48 seconds inside of ours. So,
you know, we've completely dominated the field position and the
(05:58):
territory and possession. I think we're around 60-40, something like that. Yeah.
We limited some of their sets to really low meters,
but we had a bad day on the edges. There's
no doubt about that, and that's an area that I
feel we've probably lacked a little bit of cohesion and continuity.
(06:19):
With some guys coming back that have not played for
a couple of weeks, we plain and simply got some
decisions wrong. With a team that's got a player like
Tom Travojevic and some of the speed that they've got
on the outside, it would have been a bad day
to get it wrong as well. So I actually feel
that the closeness of the score and the fact that
(06:42):
we had some bad moments on the edge that led
to really long-range tries or long-range breaks probably took away from, actually,
there were plenty of good things about our game yesterday
as well. But having said that, you know, what we've
seen over the last couple of weeks, you know, we're
going to have to make an improvement to the way
(07:04):
that we, you know, I guess conceded at times yesterday,
but we're confident we can do that too.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, and in those three games, the last three, Rich,
you've had three different right wingers, three different centre combinations
and three different halves combinations. And you mentioned continuity there or,
you know, an inability to have that continuity because of injury.
Is that one of the main reasons that the edge
defence has been a little inconsistent for you?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, definitely in some ways. You know, I'll point to
the South Sydney game. We lost Allen. We had to
shift Adam Pompey to right wing. We had Eddie Ermeyer
playing right centre along with Luke Hansen in his, I think,
his second or third game of first grade. So it's
not just a continuity. We had some inexperience in there
too and we had some guys playing out of position.
(07:51):
So I think when you throw everything into the pot,
that's certainly a factor. But nonetheless, we... We probably, you
could say at times, got from a little bit too
passive to a bit too aggressive with it. We've just
got to find the right balance on what works for
us and look for the right cues when it's time
(08:12):
to go and shut some of those plays down. But
as I say, we had some real good examples of
us doing it yesterday, but we got a couple of
them wrong back-to-back, which really hurts.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
As you said, I think it's most likely that Penrith
will beat the West Tigers later on today. That would
feed you into a qualifying final against the Dolphins. Are
they in good form? No getting away from that. Seven
straight wins. You had a narrow win over them in
Wellington in round eight. They reversed that with a narrow
win at Suncorp in round 17. They feel like a
(08:46):
team you're very closely matched with. How do you feel
like you match up with them in a knockout game?
It won't be a knockout game, but a finals game.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I think whoever's in the top eight regardless, you're going
to come up again at a good side. And in
this first round, you're going to play a team in
the top four. So if indeed it is the Dolphins,
we've had some terrific games with them over the last
couple of seasons, real close and actually real good games
(09:17):
and some quality football play. But yeah, they're confident. They're
healthy at the moment. And they've got a really good
spine and they've got some speed and some guys that,
you know, beat tackles and break tackles. So we wouldn't
expect anything any different at this stage of the year. But,
(09:38):
you know, we will be very much, you know, we'll
do our diligence on them, but we're very much concentrating
on ourselves, fixing up. fixing up some of the things
we need to look at, but also doubling down on
what we know wins us games. I'm not sure how
many games we've actually won on the trot at the moment.
You probably look at both teams and think they're both
(10:01):
in a decent run of form. And as I say,
at this stage of the year, if you want to
make an NRL grand final, you're going to have to
knock some good teams off.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
You've won six in a row, Rich. Six in a
row and eight of your last nine. There you go. See,
this is how focused you are on a game-to-game basis.
You don't even know how many games in a row
you've won, which I think is a good thing.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Six in a row.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
We're just getting done and we've already looked at it today.
We've put the review to bed. From an assistant coach
point of view, we've had to prepare for two teams
this week. So it's been double the work for us,
to be honest. So that might be why I lost
count of that. But yeah, until I guess 8 o'clock tonight,
(10:46):
we'll not be sure what day we're playing and again who.
So yeah, I'm with you. Look, I feel... I feel
three points, again, a Tigers team that probably not got
as much to play for. With the greatest respect, I
feel Penrith will probably overcome that points difference. And yeah,
it certainly looks like a home tie against the Dolphins
(11:08):
at the moment. All right.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well, it's a piece of history with 18 wins in
a regular season for you, Rich. Yeah, we'll find out
in a few hours who you're playing next week, and
then you can start your planning in earnest. Always appreciate
you taking the time for a chat to us, mate.
All the best as well for the week ahead and
for a big finals match at home next weekend.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, much appreciated, Jason. Thanks for having me on, mate,
and good to chat.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, good to chat, Rich. Rich Agar, assistant coach of
the Warriors, always very level with his analysis and his thinking.
I think that It kind of permeates across the entire
coaching staff. It doesn't matter who you talk to, whether
it's Andrew Webster, Stacey Jones, Rich Agar, Slade Griffin. They're
all very level, aren't they? Which is probably the secret, really,
(11:52):
in many ways.
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