It can be a hard job being a Warriors fan in a mountain resort town known more for its love of skiing and snowboarding than rugby league.
A small but loyal group of Warriors fans has come together from around Wanaka to support the club throughout the season.
Most Sundays, we gathered to watch home games at "Warriors HQ", The Bullock Bar, where members of our lonely fan club were often the only ones there.
The worst times were when the Warriors played across the ditch and we trudged through the different resort bars to try to convince unimpressed bar staff to put the commentary on for the league.
The Queenstown Lakes may have the most bars per capita in New Zealand, but it certainly doesn't have Warriors fans pulling pints.
That is, not until the past few weeks, when the team started winning and got on the roll which has taken it to the cusp of next week's grand final.
Instead of hillbilly bands, ski-bunny DJs, or games of lowly placed Air New Zealand Cup teams, like Tasman and, er, Otago playing on the big screen, the Warriors were the team everyone wanted to watch.
Fans have been in raptures during the past few weeks as the team stands poised to replicate the club's finest achievement.
The Warriors face a must-win game against competition favourite the Manly Sea Eagles in Sydney tonight.
For the past three months the Warriors have been like a runaway train which players and fans alike just don't want to stop.
They have won 10 out of the past 12 games, and swept aside more fancied opposition, such as minor premiership winner the Melbourne Storm, and the Sydney Roosters, in their knockout matches.
They have already made history this season, by becoming the only eighth-placed team to win in the finals, since the McIntyre top-eight system was introduced.
It's been a roller-coaster ride, which Warriors loose forward Micheal Luck says started at Sydney's dilapidated Leichardt Oval in Balmain, one of the home grounds of the Wests Tigers.
"That was a turning point for our year. It was Rube's 300th game and the boys dug in and we've played consistently better since that game," Luck told the Otago Daily Times.
Nearly all the players still sport personal reminders of that game - the 300th first-grade appearance of Ruben Wiki - in the form of hirsute tributes to the club hard man.
"The beards? Yeah, they certainly haven't hurt us. That's why we've kept them so long. We started winning so just kept them on."
Stacey Jones took the Warriors team of 2002 to the cusp of greatness until two Brad Fittler 40-20 kicks in the dying minutes of the grand final sank his team as the Roosters went on to win.
It was Fittler in the doldrums last week, when the Warriors roasted his Rooster charges 30-13 at a sold-out Mt Smart Stadium.
Warriors captain Steve Price said the team would not be looking to change anything come kick off tonight.
He put the change in the team's fortune down to a lot of hard work.
"It was a real commitment by everyone involved to really turn things around. Before we started that 12-match run, we were so much improved, but weren't getting the results," Price said.
Price and Luck both paid tribute to the groundswell of support, especially from hardcore followers.
"Mate, they're what you do it for. You know, you play for your team and your coaches first, and then you play for your loyal fans. The ones that get out and support you week in and week out," Luck said.
"I hope those diehards are enjoying it at the moment because they're one of the reasons that motivated me in the middle of the year when we were doing things tough. We owe them."
