1996 Auckland Warriors season
| 1996 Auckland Warriors season | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARL Rank | 11th | |||
| 1996 record | Wins: 10; Draws: 0; Losses: 11 | |||
| Points scored | For: 412; Against: 427 | |||
| Team information | ||||
| CEO | Ian Robson | |||
| Coach | John Monie | |||
| Captains | ||||
| Stadium | Ericsson Stadium | |||
| Avg. Attend. | 20,126 | |||
| Top scorers | ||||
| Tries | John Kirwan (10) | |||
| Goals | Gene Ngamu (50) | |||
| Points | Gene Ngamu (120) | |||
|
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The Auckland Warriors 1996 season was the Auckland Warriors 2nd season in first-grade. The club competed in Australasia's Australian Rugby League competition. The coach of the team was John Monie while Greg Alexander was the club's captain.
The Warriors retained the same jersey designs as in 1995. The jerseys were again produced by Canterbury of New Zealand. The Jersey was blue with a Green, Red and White "V". The main sponsor was DB Bitter, with Ansett Australia as the sleeve sponsor. Asics, Coca-Cola and Mitsubishi also had sponsorship deals.
As the Auckland Warriors had, along with seven other clubs, signed with News Limited they did not originally intend to compete in the Australian Rugby League's Optus Cup in 1996. Instead Super League was scheduled to start on 1 March 1996.
Legal proceedings had been ongoing between the ARL and News Ltd since 1995 and on 23 February 1996 Justice James Burchett ruled the new Super League competition to be illegal. As a result, the eight Super League clubs were obliged to compete in the Optus Cup in 1996. However the competition, which was originally planned to kick off on 1 March was delayed and commenced on 22 March.
As a result of the court action the Warriors were not invited to participate in the ARL's 1996 Rugby League World Sevens but many of their players instead took part in Super League's 1996 World Nines, which were won by New Zealand.
All Super League clubs apart from the Warriors forfeited Round One of the Optus Cup. The Warriors board instead directed reserve grade coach Frank Endacott to organise two teams of un-affiliated players to fly to Brisbane. Endacott did so, assembling teams largely made up of the Otahuhu Leopards and Ellerslie Eagles senior sides, and the Warriors first and reserve grade sides were awarded a win each via forfeit as Brisbane refused to play.
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