It’s always been tough to get a read on the Warriors. Apart from a few of the Daniel Anderson and Ivan Cleary years, they’ve alternated between breathtakingly skillful and woefully uncommitted in their 18 seasons.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve jumped on the bandwagon, finally convincing myself they’ve eradicated all the rough edges from their game and are ready to play the ‘next level’ kind of footy they tease us with.
But they burn me. Every single time, they burn me. When I need them to come through, they don’t. When the result doesn’t matter, they put it together.
Case in point was the 2008 semi-finals.
Canberra were enjoying a blistering late season charge, but were being struck down with injuries at the worst possible time.
(It was unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. Glenn Buttriss was playing halfback. Let that sink in for a second.)
So when a tough and clever Cronulla Sharks side beat Canberra I was upset, but not distraught. This was McIntyre finals, so unless St George were able to upset Manly, and the Warriors could somehow pull a win out of their arses against Melbourne, Canberra were still alive.
Manly duly got the cash, but New Zealand stole one of the most improbable wins I’ve ever seen and got up 18-15 via a late Michael Witt try.
The win defied everything that the previous 26 rounds had told us about rugby league. It had taken me a while to realise it, but with the Warriors you need to throw away the form guide and hope the sporting gods are kind.
So I’m understandably sceptical about this current side. It was a bleak early on, with the lowlight being either the 40-10 defeat to Parramatta in Round 1, or the 62-6 execution at the hands of former coach Ivan Cleary and his Panthers.
But since then, they’ve been… well, they’ve been devastating.
The week after the Penrith nightmare, they toughed out a 28-12 win over Newcastle, before turning it on against an Origin depleted Brisbane team 56-18.
That win in Brisbane was just a joy to experience. It felt like the team finally remembered how good they could be.
The passes stuck, and the Broncos weren’t just beaten, they were comprehensively whipped. If the Kiwis hadn’t taken their foot of the gas it could have easily been a record win.
The Brisbane win was flashy, but the next week was something else. A near-strength Manly is a different animal to a weakened Brisbane team, but they toughed it out with a resolve and a strength of character rarely associated with Warrior teams.
The two point win against Manly was followed by a nine point win against the high-flying Roosters, at the Sydney Football Stadium no less.
A close (some would say lucky) win in the return clash with Brisbane preceded a Game Of The Year contender against Souths.
Don’t let the 17 point margin fool you, New Zealand were up to their necks (or in Konrad Hurrell’s case, his eyeballs) in that one before Souths snagged a couple of late ones.
The bye came at a bad time though. It seemed like the team would want to ride their momentum for as long as they could, and a week off would only rob the players of their concentration.
After 15 minutes of Friday’s clash with Wests, I thought the old Warriors were back.
Down 8-0, away from home, against a team that was supposedly fired up to give old Benji Marshall a great Leichhardt send off? A few years ago, or even earlier this year, that would’ve been shut the gate.
A little bit of Shaun Johnson magic (I’m sorry, but I can’t call him Magic Johnson, it just feels wrong) saw them trail 8-6, but when Tim Simona scored a belter of a try right on halftime I thought – no, I knew – they would break.
I just knew it, because these are precisely the kind of games that the Warriors have made an art form of losing.
They’d ripped in, but a few breaks had gone against them, and the form guide says when the chips are down, New Zealand checks out
But when Konrad Hurrell scored a try only the Warriors could score – involving a deflected kick, a wicked bounce and Thomas Leuluai – I wasn’t as sure as I had been.
(As a quick aside, how good is Konrad Hurrell? He needs a reality show, with cameras following him around while he does Konrad Hurrell things, which I assume are hilarious. If there are roughly 38 shows starring Kardashians, and another hatful that are about baking or pawnshops, than surely we can make this happen. Charlie Gubb and Manu Vatuvei could be in his posse. Admit it, you would watch this show.)
It wasn’t like Wests didn’t have chances. They’re not the most clinical of teams, but everyone knows what they can be like when they get in one of their moods.
The Warriors looked frail at times, a little soft in the belly. But they wouldn’t break, and they pounced on Wests errors like a pack of hungry dogs.
With the match in the balance, Johnson snapped up a Robbie Farah kick and burned the cover defence to score.
The rest of the game proceeded to make my confident halftime prediction look like a Ben Roberts pass – ill-directed and poorly executed.
The Tigers had some more ball in good positions, and looked likely a few times. David Nofualuma looked certain to score a couple of times, before the Beast wrapped him up and threw him back to where he came from.
Ben Matulino, Elijah Taylor and company physically imposed themselves on the poor old Tigers. Johnson and Kevin Locke tore the ruck apart with pace and footwork.
Simon Mannering got a try after Sam Rapira hit a gap off Johnson, before finding Johnson backing up, who proceeded to roll an outrageous grubber past the fullback for Simon Mannering to score.
In the inevitable man of the match interview, Johnson looked happy, but not overjoyed. He said they were unhappy with the start, and needed to improve and called it an “ugly win”, which sounds strange but I can kind of understand what he means.
They might have shown a little of the champagne footy that makes them so good to watch, but they trailed early and after the early setbacks they defended well.
I want the Warriors to succeed. They’re a fair dinkum footy team, who play to a structure but can still play what they see; who run their patterns but allow for creativity.
They’re controlled enough to play the percentages, but still brave enough to offload in their own 30. They’re tough and hard and can smash you into the ground.
They’re fast. All of them are fast, even the big fellas up front. If you don’t meet their size and power, they’ll trample you. If you do, they’ll try and run you ragged.
If they make the finals (which might become ‘when’ in a few weeks) they’ll be less of a thorn in the side and more of an axe to the face.
The marriage between the physical abilities and the mental aspects of the game has always been the hurdle for the Aucklanders.
Despite the fact we’ve seen these types of surges before, I can hear the bandwagon greasing its wheels. The Warriors have spent nearly 18 seasons making a mockery of the form guide. So many times they have threatened to make the leap, before wilting when the heat was applied.
Maybe this is it though; maybe this is when they finally deliver on the promise. The biggest test comes next week, when a well rested Melbourne will travel to Mt Smart Stadium.
What was the old line from The X-Files? ‘I want to believe.’
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