The Warriors are having a frustrating 20th anniversary season.
As if things weren't difficult enough on the field for the club, off the field, the Warriors continue to be a political pawn for the Auckland City Council who is looking at the biggest reshuffle of top class sporting venues the city has ever seen.
Only Eden Park remains secure for the future - moreover, New Zealand's premiere sporting venue is set to be used even more as the council tries to make the most out of the investment it made in developing the ground for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Indeed, it seemed as though the Warriors would share the venue with the Blues and Auckland Rugby Union as regular tenants at Eden Park.
Of course, now we have read much about the emergence of QBE Stadium in Albany as the future home of the Warriors.
A terrible idea.
Firstly, Albany and the North Shore very much epitomises New Zealand today and is hardly a rugby league bed. Indeed, it struggles as a rugby union region - witness the struggles of the North Harbour Rugby Union.
Auckland's North Shore comprises mainly of Chinese and Eastern European immigrants who are avid fans of the spherical ball game, South Africans who are avid followers of their rugby teams and upper class Aucklanders who are more likely to prefer spending their Sunday afternoons at a cafe in Devonport or Ponsonby enjoying potato rosti with their lattes rather than at Mt Smart with a Lion Red watching the Warriors.
Yes, the Warriors have gained more universal following in New Zealand going as far south as Invercargill since its inception in 1995 but its heart is very much in Penrose and the surrounding suburbs of Onehunga, Mangere Bridge, Papakura, Mount Wellington, Papatoetoe and Ellerslie. A move to the North Shore away from transport links with the south seems like replacing the heart with a liver and would really set rugby league in New Zealand back into the dark ages.
If the Auckland Council was serious about diversifying its venues and ensuring that they're all used properly by all Aucklanders, why not consider developing a proper rectangular stadium for the south of the city that could not only have the Warriors but also Counties Manukau Rugby who are very much based in the region?
Moreover, here lies an opportunity for the Auckland Council to work with the Warriors to build not just a state of the art home ground to replace the admittedly aging and crumbling Mount Smart Stadium but also build world class training facilities and an academy on site in one of Auckland's most impoverished areas.
They could look at the model being used by FC Barcelona and Manchester City of developing derelict areas for the purposes of building football academies and training facilities - the latter has helped revitalised the war-torn Eastlands district in Manchester.
It seems now though that the Auckland Council is only being dictated by its own finances, choosing to ignore common sense and history - its half-arsed look at building a world class cricket venue at Western Springs where it will only host one international test match a year is another thing that is quite wrong about its plans at the moment.
My proposal for Auckland -
QBE Stadium - rugby union, football
Eden Park - rugby union, one day/Twenty20 cricket
Cornwall Park - cricket (a much better and more picturesque place for cricket than an ex-speedway)
Manukau Stadium - rugby union/league
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