The portents did not appear good for New Zealand when a fan curiously unfurled a “Lets Gone Warriors” banner before the NRL clash with Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium on Monday night.
But not much else went wrong for the visitors as they romped to a record 56-18 win over a side that lived up to their Baby Broncos tag for all the wrong reasons.
It marked the Broncos’ biggest loss at Suncorp Stadium – eclipsing their 40-4 defeat to Canterbury in 2003.
Brisbane at times looked like boys against men after being totally outclassed by the Warriors without their State of Origin stars Sam Thaiday, Corey Parker, Matt Gillett and Justin Hodges.
The Warriors (4-8 record) celebrated their first away win of the season in style, piling on 10 tries to three with doubles to Manu Vatuvei, Konrad Hurrell, Thomas Leuluai and Glen Fisiiahi.
The visitors led 42-8 by the 58th minute before the reshuffled Broncos hit back with back-to-back tries to stand-in captain Alex Glenn (61st minute) and Scott Prince (65th).
But the Broncos fans in the 21,259-strong crowd resumed leaving the ground after Fisiiahi (68th) and Kevin Locke (73rd) reignited the Warriors’ procession to the line.
It marked the fourth loss in five games for the sliding Broncos (5-7), who conceded 50-plus points in an NRL game in Queensland for the first time.
The Warriors led 26-8 at halftime despite halfback Shaun Johnson’s erratic boot.
Thanks to Johnson’s consecutive misses from the conversion spot, Brisbane locked up the scores at 8-8 with a 25th minute Prince penalty.
Johnson missed his third conversion attempt after centre Konrad Hurrell steamrolled fullback Corey Norman to score in the 28th minute.
The law of averages kicked in when Johnson finally converted after the try of the first half.
Thomas Leuluai brilliantly regathered his chip and chase, threw an overhead basketball pass to Vatuvei who offloaded back to the Warriors pivot to score in the 33rd.
Leuluai had a double by the 37th after backing up Locke’s sublime grubber and regather.
Johnson kicked a penalty on halftime to blow out the deficit further.
The only complaint onlookers had about the Warriors display resonated around prop Russell Packer.
Cameras captured him appearing to urinate while on the field in the first half.