An emotional launch to Warriors season

The Warriors' season launch is often a dry, corporate affair but yesterday's 2009 opener at Mt Smart Stadium became an emotional celebration of the lost Warrior, Sonny Fai.

The club invited Fai's sister, Lalelei, to speak and she told the assembled suits of her family's loss.

"Sometimes we feel as if we can't go on any more, but we stop and think of what my brother would have wanted us to do,'' she said. "I don't want us to mourn or to cry or to be sad,'' saying that the message on Fai's phone was "live life to the fullest''.

Lalelei Fai praised the support of the club's senior executives, whom she said had helped the family to carry on.

Club chief executive Wayne Scurrah was close to tears when he spoke of January 4, the day Fai was lost, presumed drowned, in a rip at Bethell's Beach, before screening footage of Fai.

Speaking after Ms Fai, NRL chief executive David Gallop said he felt "personally privileged'' to have heard the speech.

In his address, Gallop praised the Warriors' off-field and community operation, which he said had "gone from effectively wooden spooners... to the premiers''.

The Warriors leave tomorrow for their final trial in Lismore against the Gold Coast, and have named a near full-strength 21-man squad to travel.

- © Fairfax NZ News