For nearly four decades Brisbane has been the Broncos' turf, a status built on seven premierships. On the penultimate weekend of this NRL season, though, Suncorp Stadium will be painted red and white: the Dolphins booked a home preliminary final with a come-from-behind 26-16 win over the New Zealand Warriors at Go Media Stadium in Auckland on Saturday night — in the first finals match the young franchise has ever played.
The club's suburban Brisbane history stretches back to 1947, but its NRL iteration is just four seasons old, and this was its finest hour yet. Trailing 16-8 with 20 minutes remaining in an old-school battle of attrition — six penalty goals, five of them to the Warriors, and three sin-binnings, all in a fiery first half — the Dolphins stormed home with tries to Herbie Farnworth, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Jack Bostock to finish four tries to one, and move within one match of a grand final.
"It's one of those things you can't describe what it means. It's obviously massive for everyone involved at the club," Dolphins coach Kristian Woolf said. "The club has done such a good job over four years. The blokes who deserve the credit are the players. The bravery they showed under pressure, they've done that so many times at the back end of the season … They're in this position for a reason and that's because they want to work hard and they want to work hard for each other."
The night had threatened to get away from them early. Thomas Flegler was ruled out with concussion soon after kick-off, and the first half became a procession to the sin bin: the Warriors' Adam Pompey for a shoulder charge on Ray Stone, then the Dolphins' Kurt Capewell and Selwyn Cobbo for running in to join a melee. Warriors fullback Taine Tuaupiki spun and stepped through four defenders for a brilliant solo try, added three first-half penalty goals, and his side — which ABC's match coverage noted had leaked 88 points across the previous three weeks — defended desperately to lead 12-8 at the break, Cobbo's try from a deft Farnworth catch-and-pass the Dolphins' only answer.
Then the finish: just after the hour, Farnworth scooped up a bouncing ball and swerved through three tacklers to score. In the 66th minute Tabuai-Fidow ignited a length-of-the-field movement he started and finished himself, linking with Farnworth on the way, to put the Dolphins in front — and Bostock's opportunistic strip with five minutes left sealed what Brisbane Times called a late ambush.
Warriors coach Andrew Webster defended his side's repeated shots at goal — "To go up by eight points is a no-brainer, you've got to do it," he said, adding that had they declined the kicks and "got beaten by two, I probably would have got sacked". His team — toppled in a qualifying final on home soil, as New Zealand's RNZ put it — now takes the long road, a sudden-death clash with Newcastle next weekend. "I don't think we can sulk for long. There's another path for us," Webster said.
The Dolphins, meanwhile, get the week off before their grand final qualifier in front of their own fans — one win from a title decider, in just their fourth season in the competition.