1997 New Zealand Warriors Alternate Jersey
A rare one-off blue-bodied jersey (a fairly plain, flat blue) paired with a red collar, a clash-avoidance variant of the Super League-era Nike kit.
★ Mysterious, very hard-to-find strip used for a single Super League game against Canterbury, presumably to avoid a kit clash.
Our confidence in these details is medium — some jerseys are tricky to pin down. Know better? ✎ Suggest an edit
The 1997 season
The Warriors played in the breakaway Super League competition, the only season the club has spent outside the ARL/NRL. The first-grade side was coached by John Monie, then Frank Endacott. Wahpedia catalogues 4 distinct 1997 Warriors designs in total, 3 of them first-grade match jerseys, all listed on the 1997 season page.
Maker and sponsor
Nike made the Warriors' on-field jerseys from 1997 to 1999, so this design belongs to the Nike era of the club's kit. The front-of-jersey sponsor in 1997 was DB Bitter, the club's principal partner of the period.
Collector's notes
Alternate strips are worn for only a handful of games and made in small runs, which puts this among the scarcer 1997 designs. To check a 1997 alternate jersey, compare the neck and hem labels with the maker for that season (Nike), make sure the sponsor set matches 1997 rather than a neighbouring year, and compare stitching, collar and sponsor placement against the photo above. Replicas are usually a looser cut in a lighter fabric than player-issue jerseys, which also carry a number and, in most eras, a tighter athletic fit. Data confidence for this entry is medium and the primary source is rljerseys.com.
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