Dolphins denied as Warriors come from behind for NRL win in Wellington

Saturday, 25 April 2026

Alofi’ana Khan-Pereira and the Warriors celebrate their win over the Dolphins in Wellington on Saturday night.

At Hnry Stadium, Wellington: Warriors 20 (Alofiana Khan-Pereira tries 4min, 29min, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak try 26min, Taine Tuaupiki try 62min; Tanah Boyd 2 con) Dolphins 18 (Herbie Farnworth try 11min, Jamayne Isaako tries 19min, 22min; Isaako 3 con). HT: 14-18.

Sin bin: Thomas Flegler (Dolphins) 62min

The Warriors survived a scare to in the end sink the Dolphins in an NRL nailbiter in Wellington on Saturday night.

In front of a record-breaking, sold-out crowd of 34,812 on a beautiful Anzac Day in the capital, Andrew Webster’s side came from behind, then held their nerve, to notch a 20-18 victory that marks their second three-game win streak of the campaign and maintains their second place on the ladder.

After losing co-captain Mitch Barnett and centre Ali Leiataua to head knocks in the second half, the Warriors fought through adversity in a game where they were down 18-6 midway through the first half, but ended up keeping the Dolphins scoreless through the final hour, as winger Alofiana Khan-Pereira bagged two tries for a second-straight week, in his third appearance for his new club.

The teams line up for the pre-match Anzac ceremony in front of a sold-out crowd at Wellington’s Hnry Stadium.

In what was the highest attendance for a rugby league match in the city (topping the 30,112 for the Warriors’ clash against the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2013), it was also the Warriors’ third-biggest crowd for a game in New Zealand (behind only the 38,405 and 37,502 Eden Park tallies in 2011 against the Parramatta Eels and 2012 against the Manly Sea Eagles, respectively.

And it continued the club’s winning ways in Wellington, where they hadn’t triumphed in their first six matches, but have now made it four victories on the trot (following their visits in 2023, 2019 and 2016).

Anzac Day has never been a traditionally successful outing for the club, either, on the end of plenty of unhappy matchups against the Storm in Melbourne, then losing to the Gold Coast Titans in Auckland in 2024, before beating the Newcastle Knights in Christchurch last year.

In match-ups against the Dolphins, the winner of the clash had always alternated in their six previous meetings, the Redcliffe side winning the last clash in Auckland last year, incidentally by the exact same 20-18 scoreline.

Here, they were right in it, too.

After a moving pre-game Anzac ceremony, it was a first half full of action, featuring three tries apiece and with a further three ruled out, and the Warriors dominated the stats lines, but found themselves on the wrong end of the one that mattered most, on the scoreboard.

Taine Tuaupiki goes on the charge for the Warriors, having been reinstated at fullback.

The hosts had a very handy 59% possession, a sublime 92% completion rate, made seven linebreaks to two, and were on the right side of 9-2 and 5-3 error and penalty counts, respectively, yet went to the sheds trailing 18-14.

Having opened the scoring in just the fourth minute, with Roger Tuivasa-Sheck producing beautiful quick hands to send Khan-Pereira away to the left corner, it was a fifth game in a row Webster’s outfit had scored the first try of a game.

But, with the ‘Warri-ors’ chant just starting to reverberate around the stadium, a pair of Leka Halasima penalties (for a high shot then a shoulder charge he was also placed on report for) proved costly, as the Dolphins dived in for a rapid three tries in 11 minutes to spin the complexion completely.

After Herbie Farnworth opened their account with some individual brilliance, producing a lovely grubber and chase to score right by the sticks, Halasima was then in amongst it all, being the guilty party on an obstruction where the Bunker chalked off a try to Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, then, after successfully overturning a strip penalty through a captain’s challenge, coughing up a pass on the next set.

The Dolphins didn’t need much more invitation, with Kiwis winger Jamayne Isaako helping himself to two tries on back-to-back sets, as the Warriors’ left-side defence was found too narrow and easily exposed.

Warriors winger Alofi’ana Khan-Pereira backed up last week’s two tries with another double against the Dolphins.

The Warriors, though, enjoyed back-to-back four-pointers of their own ‒ which made it six tries inside the game’s first 29 minutes ‒ as Watene-Zelezniak got his revenge in an easy shift right from a close-range centre-field scrum, then out the other side where former Titan Khan-Pereira produced another classy finish.

After Halasima wasn’t able to cling on when landing after flying high to snaffle a kick from Tanah Boyd, whose 1/3 from his wide conversion attempts was the difference on the scoreboard, the Warriors still had work to do in the second stanza, which was quickly made tougher when Barnett was forced off five minutes in after a friendly-fire head clash with 100-game man Chanel Harris-Tavita.

With points drying up, they eventually came in the 62nd minute when Taine Tuaupiki burst around Jake Averillo, in a play which coincided with tempers flaring, as the Warriors reacted angrily to a collision which left Leiataua out cold on the ground.

The upshot was Dolphins prop Thomas Flegler getting sent to the sin bin, for what was a face-to-face contact, and on return he would again be a guilty party, when, with his side down by two, he over-ran a dummy-half pass and knocked on badly.

However, Watene-Zelezniak had horrors of his own, put on report for a hip-drop tackle, then fumbling a play-the-ball coming out of his end with half a dozen minutes on the clock, before being penalised for giving referee Liam Kennedy a spray with under two to go.

But, with the Warriors producing some stoic defence, Tuivasa-Sheck again to the fore many times, and Isaako sending a desperate two-point field goal wide with time almost up, they were able to see it out.