Warriors’ resurgence is nothing to joke about

Jasper Bruce | September 16, 2023

You’ll never feel more like Batman than when you’re looking for the Joker at Mount Smart Stadium.

To find the Warriors’ most well-known super fan, you’ll need to weave your way through the venue’s sixth sold-out crowd of the season. 

It’s the night of the NRL semi-final against Newcastle and the Warriors faithful, starved of home games for almost three years, are waiting to see their team play.

It’s their first home final since 2008, the culmination of a season in which they’ve finally allowed themselves to dream again. 

By 5pm local time on Saturday, September 16, the place is beginning to fill up.

Fans are taking their seats from the hill on the northern side to the grandstand at the west, where the setting sun casts golden light all about.

To look into the crowd is to reel your way through 29 years of history; just about every Warriors jersey is on display, even the god-awful yellow-and-black “Kiwi bush shirt” worn briefly in 2020.

You know the one – it looks like a honeycomb-flavoured picnic rug.

But where is the Joker?

On a night like this, Mount Smart has a stack of hiding places for a rabid Warriors fan: There are food carts aplenty, giving off smells of carnival food on the boil. 

There are merch stands whose vendors predict record sales, and concrete tunnels under the grandstands where fans line up to see ‘The Wahs’ take the turf.

Finally, in a marquee beside the eastern corner=post, the Joker can be found mingling with fellow Warriors tragics.

His make-up is applied to perfection, as it has been for all 12 years he has dressed this way

Just like any super villain, the Joker won’t reveal his true identity. 

But what he will say is that he never tires of stopping for a photo in the queue for a beer or to record a punter’s voicemail message. Least of all in a season of such resurgence.

“I just want to support my boys a different way, so I thought, why not paint the face?” The Joker told AAP of his origin story.

“If people can identify with that passion, then I think that’s cool.”

The Joker has seen just about everything since his first season coming in kit: Nine (nine!) different coaches, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck’s 2018 Dally M Medal-winning season, a near-last placed finish in 2022.

There’s one thing that’s new for the NRL’s most iconic fan, though: A Warriors home final.

In the space of a year, a team on its knees has risen up and carried an entire nation with it.

And as he looks over Mount Smart Stadium, where the crowd by now has filled to capacity, it’s hard for The Joker not to become emotional.

“I think what I love about this campaign right now is that we’re a team,” he said.

“It’s like when the All Blacks do well and the whole of New Zealand feels happy.

“And now that the Warriors are doing well, I think the whole of New Zealand is feeling really happy.

“We are the New Zealand Warriors. We’re New Zealand’s team and it’s captivating everyone.”