The Wahs Wagon continues on to Brisbane after big win

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Warriors v Newcastle Knights

The New Zealand Warriors are off to Brisbane for a Preliminary final as they booked their spot with a 40-10 win over the Newcastle Knights in Auckland.

The Knights needed to silence the crowd early if they wanted to make an impact but they did the complete opposite as they turned the ball over on their very first set and the Warriors made a big impact straight away with three tries in the opening 15 minutes.

It was just inside the third minute that the home side was able to cross when Shaun Johnson's attacking magnetism brought in the defence to focus on him before a short ball put Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad through to open the scoring.

The home side were left disappointed when referee Adam Gee and Grant Atkins in the bunker denied Wayde Egan an effort from dummy half. The Warriors were only a couple of plays away from scoring again when Addin Fonua-Blake went through some soft Newcastle defence.

Failing to complete a set when they did have a rare opportunity with the ball hurt the Knights and the Wahs took advantage when they went left and took advantage and Marcelo Montoya went over in the corner just keeping his feet inside the field of play to score.

The Knights had a 16-0 deficit staring at them as they slowly began to even things out in possession but they could only put a minor dent into the scoreboard when the Warriors defence was caught infield as the Knights went left and Greg Marzhew got on the board.

Adding to the scoreboard again was important for the Knights and they did just that when Dylan Lucas went in after Adam Clune ran at the line and got the important offload away. Things were starting to look good for the Knights but it was short lived as the Warriors took advantage of the pressure they began to put on and Dylan Walker went through soft Newcastle defence.

It was one-way traffic from there as Rocco Berry got a reprieve from the Bunker when his efforts were initially rejected on-field by Adam Gee who believed there was a double movement. Berry was able to keep the ball off the ground and get it to the line for a four pointer.

The Warriors took advantage twice more as the Knights looked to switch off late when DWZ got his first try of the finals series when he was left in open space after the Newcastle defence had rushed in and left DWZ unmarked. The Wah's then went over inside the final five minutes when Bayley Sironen was in the right sport after the home-side goes over a play after Kalyn Ponga lost the high ball.

The New Zealand Warriors will continue their fairy-tale story into Brisbane next year whilst the Knights will no doubt be disappointed but they still managed to beat many of the expectations on them this season and will look back with pride.