0°C | Tuesday April 29, 2025 
18 September 2023
By James Mullan
For the first time since 2007, the North Sydney Bears are one win away from claiming the NSW Cup Premiership after narrowly triumphing in the Preliminary Final against the New Zealand Warriors.
In their minor premiership winning season, Norths were heavily favoured to go all the way but stumbled in their first finals game, going down by 6 points to the South Sydney Rabbitohs. This meant they would have to play in the Preliminary Final while Souths advanced straight to the Grand Final.
It was win or go home heading into the match up with the New Zealand Warriors at Leichhardt Oval. The Bears were determined from the get go, threatening the line just 5 minutes in only to have a Allan Fitzgibbon try effort just ruled out.
Not a problem as Ben Marschke put his brother Jesse through a gap in the defence 30 metres out for the first try just two minutes later.
Both teams then settled into the game for a period of back and forth. This was broken by Bears’ centre Toa Mata’afa, who barged over in the 25th minute to make it 12-0 after the successful conversion.
The momentum kept rolling when Ben Talty dived over from point blank range off a Tyran Ott set up to make it 18-0 at the halftime break.
Early in the second half, the Warriors would get two quick tries back and convert both to make it 18-12.
But there wasn’t much time for nerves as six minutes later Jesse Marschke danced his way through three Warriors defenders to cross for his second try.
60 minutes into the contest a right hand manoeuvre set up winger Allan Ftizgibbon for a thrilling one hand put down in the corner to extend the lead to 28-12. The Bears just had to hold on for the final 20 minutes.
They did well to hold up until the Warriors broke through to score in the 71st and 77th minute to set up a seriously intense finish to the game with scores at 28-24.
Norths muscled up and held off the Warrior charge, with the Fitzgibbon try proving to be the winner.
After the game coach, Jason Taylor thanked Bears fans. “The support from the crowd was superb. I’m not sure we would’ve got to where we got at the back end of that game without our fans getting behind us and supporting us like they did.”
“It was a really tough game. The first half was really good, we were really happy with the way the boys went about their work,” going on to say “As happens in these games the opposition are always going to come back which we played a big part in allowing.” But for Taylor the result was the only thing that mattered. “We won! We got the job done.”
They will face Souths in the Grand Final, who finished 2nd this season.
With the win, the big black Bears are back on the road again, heading to the Grand Final. The club hasn’t claimed a premiership trophy since they won three reserve grade premierships in 199, 1992 and 1993.
The Grand Final will be hosted at Commbank Stadium in Parramatta at 3pm on Saturday 23 September. It will also be streamed on 9now and NSWRL TV online.