Warriors have last laugh over shirt fight

BY AARON LAWTON

EXCLUSIVE: THE Warriors are set to catch the Gold Coast Titans on the hop by pulling a last-minute jersey switch ahead of today's season-opener in Robina.

The match is scheduled to get underway at 1pm local time and concerns had been raised about how the Warriors will cope in their black "home" jerseys after Titans CEO Michael Searle opted to have his charges wear their white "away" jerseys.

The move left Warriors CEO Wayne Scurrah surprised and fuming with his counterpart who, in last week's Sunday News, he labelled as "unsporting".

But Sunday News can reveal Scurrah will today spring a surprise of his own on the Titans with the Warriors now expected to wear special blue jerseys modelled on the uniform worn by the original 1995 team in a bid to negate the heat.

"We have been aware for some time that the Titans might force us into our regular black `home' strip," Scurrah told Sunday News.

"So what we've done is we've brought forward the launch date of one of our alternative jerseys which has been modelled on the original 1995 club jersey.

"We are going to be playing in that this weekend.

"The shorts are white, for a start, and the fabric of this jersey is much lighter when compared to the black jerseys.

"We believe this move is going to totally negate any advantage the Titans thought they would get by wearing their away jersey."

Scurrah said player safety was a big reason for the jersey change.

In the past, a number of Warriors players have battled to recover from matches in the energy-sapping Australian heat.

"It's going to make a pretty big difference," he said.

"No patron at the game would wear black given how hot it's going to be.

"They'll be wearing lighter colours, for sure.

"Maybe it's going to help us out, certainly from the mental side of things but physically as well.

"Black is not the colour to wear if it's hot.

"We expect it will make quite a significant difference."

Scurrah said it was pleasing to spring a surprise on the "unsporting" Aussies, especially in light of how they had handled this particular issue.

"I think it's a nice counter to their behaviour in terms of them trying to get us to play in what they were expecting was a black strip," he said.

"We might have surprised them a little bit with this and it's always nice to get one over the Aussies."

The temperature on the Gold Coast today is expected to be around 25 degrees with humidity at 76%.

The Warriors are scheduled to play the Broncos in Brisbane in round three and it's expected the hosts will wear white on that occasion as well.

- © Fairfax NZ News