The Warriors will play against the Wests Tigers, Canberra Raiders and Gold Coast Titans in the pool round of the 2015 NRL Auckland Nines at Eden Park.
The second edition of the tournament will take place on Saturday, January 31 and Sunday, February 1.
The draw announcement at Rugby League headquarters in Sydney yesterday revealed each of the four pools had been renamed after Auckland locations, with Pool One being Rangitoto, Pool Two - Waiheke, Pool 3 - Piha, and the Warriors' Pool 4 - Hunua.
Pool One - Rangitoto is made up of the Parramatta Eels, Manly Sea Eagles, Newcastle Knights, and St George Illawarra Dragons.
Pool Two - Waiheke, looks to be the pool of death, consisting of four tough sides - the Melbourne Storm, inaugural champions the North Queensland Cowboys, Penrith Panthers, and the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Pool Three - Piha contains the Sydney Roosters, Brisbane Broncos, Canterbury Bulldogs, and Cronulla Sharks.
A new inclusion to the competition structure was also announced, with the New Zealand Kiwi Ferns team scheduled to meet their Australian counterparts, the Jillaroos, in three games over the two-day tournament, in what is a tremendous boost for the women's game.
A conversion shot clock will also be introduced to the playing format as another innovation following on from the "bonus zone" five-point try rule, for tries scored under the posts, implemented in this year's event.
"As well as great advertisement for the game the Nines is a wonderful opportunity to try stuff," explained Nines organiser and Duco Events director David Higgins.
After the success of the inaugural tournament, which surprised many critics, Higgins is bullish about their ability to build upon that and produce a bigger and better event next year.
"All the big areas we hit a home run so it's hard to top it but I think we will. We went into it worrying that it might rain, it didn't. It might not sell out, it sold out. The games might be boring - they weren't, they were scintillating. The commercial result was great, the media coverage wonderful. There were worries there might be issues with drunken fans and there wasn't."
That overall success and the $2.6 million prizemoney won the Nines concept great support among the clubs and Higgins expects that to translate into more star players attending and a more attractive brand of football being played.
"Now that the players and coaches understand the format you'll see more of a competitive edge. They'll come in with strategy, there's big prizemoney and the clubs want to win it. You'll see more hard-nosed competitiveness. Last year we were happy, we had plenty of big names, but next year we'll go even better and there will be that competitiveness to win and more star players."
Shifting the event to the last weekend in January meantit would not clash with NRL pre-season games and should further encourage clubs to include their big money stars.
- By David Skipwith of the New Zealand Herald
New year - new look
- 2015 NRL Auckland Nines at Eden Park - Saturday, January 31 and Sunday, February 1
- $2.6 million prize money up for grabs.
- All 16 NRL clubs will bring 18-man squads. Teams are split into four groups and play nine-minute halves. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage of the tournament.
- The four pools have been renamed after Auckland locations:
Rangitoto: Eels, Sea Eagles, Knights, Dragons.
Waiheke: Storm, Cowboys, Panthers, Rabbitohs.
Piha: Roosters, Broncos, Bulldogs, Sharks.
Hunua: Warriors, Tigers, Raiders, Titans.
