The forgotten victim of the Warriors’ two and a half year stay in Australia is a 2005 Nissan Tiida.
Second-rower Josh Curran didn’t think twice before parking his car outside the club’s offices at Mt Smart Stadium in March of 2020, figuring the team would only be in Australia for a month or so before returning to Auckland.
Wishful thinking.
The 23-year-old finally got back to his car late last month to find it parked exactly as he had left it, albeit looking a little worse for wear.
“There’s actually mould growing around the wheels,” Curran told pan66.com.
The car is dead. The tyres are flat, the battery is drained.
Josh Curran
“I need to get someone to come out and fix it, because it’s definitely not moving.
“But I’ll worry about it when I move back over to New Zealand.”
Curran scores a well deserved try
As the weeks turned into months through the pandemic, and it became increasingly clear that the Warriors wouldn’t be returning home anytime soon, the club’s Auckland-based staff began to speculate about the car.
Had it been dumped by a member of the public? Was somebody living in it?
Long-time Warriors executive assistant and corporate project manager, Jayne Hoffman, recalls discovering a range of personal belongings in the vehicle when she went for a closer look.
“We were at the point of calling for it to be towed but noticed that there were clothes, blankets and even NRL accreditation locked inside,” Hoffman said.
“We’ve had cases of personal belongings being left behind after the squad left for Australia, but it seemed odd that someone would leave their car for that long, without telling anyone or leaving keys for it to be occasionally started.”
The emotional Mt Smart return
As it turned out Curran had loaded the car with his worldly possessions prior to parking it up, having just moved out of the house he was sharing with teammates Karl Lawton and Jack Murchie at the time.
“I cleaned it out when I got back to see what was in there, there was a bit of everything, I’ve even got a TV in there still,” Curran said.
“I’m trying to sell the TV, there’s heaps of stuff in there. I kind of just threw everything in there because we had two days to pack up our house before we left.”
Thankfully for Curran, his achievements on the field in recent times have ensured his lasting legacy at the Warriors won’t be the dilapidated Nissan.
After appearing in just five games across his first two years with the Warriors, the Sydney-born forward has become one of the club's most consistent players over the past two seasons, with his ability to move seamlessly between the edge and middle of the field proving particularly valuable.
Curran puts his body on the line to save a try
Warriors general manager of football Craig Hodges said such is Curran's form, the three-time Indigenous All Star shouldn’t be far off featuring in New South Wales coach Brad Fittler’s plans for Origin next year.
“Josh should certainly come into representative calculations moving forward,” Hodges told pan66.com.
“He’s improved enormously over the past 12 months and I still think he’s only scratched the surface.
“I think he has got so much more in him still and that will come out over the next period of time.”