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Sorry guys, I know this stuff is old hat, but I’m obliged to produce one of these per season. So just lie back and read a magazine while I do what I need to do and it will be over before you know it.
So here goes…
With the New Zealand Warriors on a three-game winning streak and now loitering in an unlikely top-four position, is it time to consider them as genuine premiership smokies in 2015?
After six wins out of eight Origin-drained rounds of football, you’d be crazy for not believing this is a potential possibility that could quite literally occur, pending the variable impacts of various external determinants.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m convinced the small sample of evidence from the last couple of months unmistakably proves that this incarnation is the real deal to figure in something sometime in September.
That’s right, I’ve seen enough to indicate that Andrew McFadden’s men will be hard to beat, or at the very least, set expectations high and disappoint.
On the weekend, we were treated to all the choicest colours of the Warriors rainbow against a fit, fresh and firing Storm at Mt Smart Stadium.
The home side’s 28-14 victory was a melange of belligerence, speed and complex handshakes, all capped off with the type of domineering-yet-workmanlike scoreline that perfectly contributes to inflating expectations.
So if they can really give this competition a shake, where do their key areas lie?
In a layoff from tradition, the pivotal element of New Zealand’s charge will be in the forwards.
Unlike any other team in the NRL, they have a big, mobile pack that likes to roll through the middle, a decisive point of difference in a modern game overrun with light packs who prefer to truck it up as close to the sideline as possible.
Bringing an invaluable edge in experience to these forwards is 2015 State of Origin grand finalist Ryan Hoffman.
Provided you disregard Jacob Lillyman and Nathan Friend, Hoffman is the cliched cool-headed foreign forward that the Warriors have craved in recent times, and as history tells us, they’ve depended on weathered imports to guide them through similar unfulfilled campaigns. Having him there is an omen.
Like Steve Price and Denis Betts, who have filled the overseas role before him, the backrower is a shrewd buy for his composure, leadership and migrant status. There’s no doubt he could be a blue-collar wild card come finals time. Or a deportee.
In addition to their advantage up-front, the Warriors have broken another old habit by arming their side with wildcards.
One of those who will run roughshod off the back of their typecast scrum is 100-gamer Shaun Johnson, a one-time enigmatic frustration way back in 2015 who has now matured so much that he can pack his own lunch.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but he was once voted the world’s best player, and it was from here that his nickname of ‘Magic’ was derived after speculation arose about supernatural forces infiltrating the judging panel.
Some are now even saying Johnson is the greatest Warrior halfback since Greg Alexander and the other bloke who runs the Subway in Avondale, but I’m going to wait until I see at least one more flashy flick-pass before I make a call of that gravity.
Then when it comes time to break the big games, the New Zealanders have a big-game game-breaker in Manu ‘The Beast’ Vatuvei.
The cult figure is an invaluable point-scoring machine, primarily because he produces the required amount of tries to cancel out his freakishly high error count.
Vatuvei sets a wonderful example for a backline of stylish young bucks, showing them exactly what not to do if they don’t want their finely-fashioned hair tousled by teammates every third set-of-six. For any of these reasons, he could easily be the highlight of this year’s finals series.
So like me, are you tentatively certain? Is this the year that this group of ever-reliable talent take the Warriors all the way?
I, for one, certainly think so, despite making an agreement with my spouse to go nowhere near them with my money.
Can Coach McFadden harness the power within and write his name in New Zealand history alongside Daniel Anderson, Ivan Cleary and Jimmy Spithill as another Australian who let the country down at the final hurdle?
Let’s hope he’s lucky enough to earn the title. But it won’t be easy.
Besides a grand final that’s rumoured to be held in a different timezone, they have to endure a tough run to the finals beforehand that includes away games, not to mention the challenge of trying to maintain their interest levels. But I’m not deterred; I’ve just got that familiar feeling about them.
Get on board with me. Because if anyone knows how to be a dark horse, its the mighty Warriors!