As the Warriors fan, it's my job to stay optimistic, keep the faith and just keep a smile on my dial about the Warriors ... well it's not my job it's my lifestyle, if that's possible.

It's kinda hard to come away with too many positives after yesterday's performance against Manly though. Yeah Manly's defence was on point and they were pretty lethal, but that's Manly, that's why they are the envy of the league.

The lads simply didn't have that extra bit in them, which maybe would have been there if Shaun Johnson was playing but it was a good chance for the team to show how they can play without Johnson. Chad Townsend didn't have his best game, neither did Thomas Leuluai but while some stuff can be put on a single player like Townsend's kicking game, other things like the smoothness of a back line move come down to all the guys around them.

It's a weird feeling, like Manly were good and we were pretty good cos we were in the contest for most of the game going toe to toe with the best but it just looked like we were trying to polish a poo.

Any time we headed in to the strike zone, the ball went right and it went to Konrad Hurrell. Cool, but Manly did this better. Andrew Voss celebrated the Warriors defence on two hit ups just outside the left goal post, when Manly put two forwards in to big pile of Warrior's defence ... then they shifted right ... and scored. That kinda summed up the difference between the teams. Manly had purpose and intent with every play, in this case they took two hit ups to suck in the Warriors defence then shifted wide. Both hit ups were performed with this intensity and ruthlessness that the Warriors had to put numbers in the tackle.

We kinda just did a few ups here and there and would then shift wide and expect Hurrell to do something instead of working to get him in a positive situation. Against Matai, no matter who you are you're gonna need a bit of space of some distractions around you to get a cheeky teeny weeny edge. We just gave the ball to Koni and said here ya go Jack.

I'm going H.A.M on that because it was the difference. The intent, execution and desire to do everything perfectly was the difference.

Obviously Hurrell was a positive. Not only because of his attacking play, but he made a few desperate tackles and was of course there to mop up before the Snake swooped on the ball. I'm loving this Konrad Hurrell. I'm also loving the work of Nathan Friend, as usual.

Manu Vatuvei ran for 180 odd metres, but he needs way more help. When Jacob Lillyman goes off, there's not much mongrel ya know. Sam Rapira will help that hopefully and Ben Matulino showed a few glimpses of his effectiveness but we can't rely on Vatuvei, Hurrell and Ngani Laumape to be our sole metre eaters.

I feel like I'm being harsh and negative, but we've seen how competitive shit's is/going to be. Everyone seems to be finding form and if you're not winning games you won't be in the 8. Luckily, we face the Raiders, Sharks and Knights in the nek 3 weeks. If we can't win all 3 of those games well then guess I can kick my feet up.