GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Sport
OPPORTUNITY MISSED
A Warriors fan’s absolutely world-class reaction to their match-winning try over the Newcastle Knights is being described by those who witnessed it as “borderline legendary” and tragically, completely unrecorded.
The unfilmed performance took place in the lounge of die-hard Wahs supporter 29-year-old Dylan Huia from Lower Hutt, just seconds after Warriors forward Leka Halasima dived over in a last gasp effort to win the game 20-15 after the siren.
“He just erupted,” said flatmate Ben Foster, who witnessed the event in person but inexplicably failed to hit record on his phone. “He jumped up, screamed, did like three fist pumps, booted a cushion across the lounge and collapsed in a crying heap on the bean bag. It was cinematic.”
“It would’ve gone nuts on TikTok,” he added regretfully.
Huia himself says he’s gutted his moment of raw, visceral, masculine joy has now vanished into the ether, never to be shared with the internet or made into a meme.
“Honestly, I’ve never reacted like that to anything. It was just pure instinct. I felt the mana of every Whetu and Stacey and Manu in history pass through me,” he said, still buzzing.
“Then I turned around and realised no one had filmed it. Flat out disgrace.”
The miss is particularly painful in light of several now-viral fan videos showing other Warriors fans, including Shaun Johnson himself, losing their minds across the country.
“Mine was better than all of them,” claimed Huia, who is now forced to rely on word-of-mouth and badly re-enacted demonstrations to preserve the memory.
“I even did a knee slide,” he added.
The group have since agreed to keep phones rolling for the rest of the season — just in case history repeats itself and Dylan delivers another unseen masterpiece.
More to come.
