Diary Of A Warriors Fan - Expectations
Our Warriors side, are currently 3-3.
It's very weird, they haven't really played all that well but have had one of their best starts to an NRL season of recent memory. The victory over the Tigers, which finished 32-22 was a nice reflection of the Warriors start to the season. They had patches where they looked in control with the ball in hand, barnstorming runs combined with speed and excitement but as has been the case this season there was a dramatic fall off in patches of the game. Sloppy handling errors, dumb penalties and rather average defence all let the Tigers back in the game.
I have no real idea which angle to take because in the past I've pushed the 'a win is a win' angle, but it was their inability to play 80 solid minutes that let the Tigers in with a sniff. While we can look towards the latter stages of the game and praise the Warriors for holding on to get the win, it was the same old issues that got them into that spot.
It's hard not to be excited by the play of Chad Townsend and Shaun Johnson. Over the past few weeks we have seen a lack of balance in the halves, with Johnson's play not near the quality needed while Townsend starting the season strongly. Look further back and it's been the opposite with Johnson leading admirably while his halves partner was largely absent. Against the Tigers we started to see a nice balance emerge as they each had reasonable influence on the game and neither overplayed their hand with the other half picking up any slack.
Whether it was Townsend sliding over to the right hand side to deliver a bounce pass that Johnson pounced on to score, or Johnson skipping to the left after Nathan Friend made a break and earned a quick play the ball to set up Manu Vatuvei. We're finally seeing these two work as a duo, a combination where they can pounce at opportunities and work together to ensure that they make the most of them.
A lot of this has to do with Tui Lolohea, who looks better with each week he plays in the NRL. While Sam Tomkins won't leave until the end of the season, Lolohea is making us forget about Tomkins pretty quickly because he's starting to have an impact with his passing as well as his running of the football. Don't sleep on Lolohea, he's a damn fine player.
After the Storm game, I was sad because the Warriors just didn't offer anything. But this week we started to see a few plays come off, a little bit of creativity in the playbook and set ups that create chances. Townsend's try saw Lolohea set up on his outside with Ben Matulino on the inside, two options for Townsend to choose from but also two options for the defence to be aware of. Townsend threw a dummy to Matulino and skipped through the line to score.
It was also great to see some footy played on the go, whether it was an offload from Ryan Hoffman to set up Lolohea's try after Johnson turned Konrad hurrell back on the inside or Johnson swooping on Townsend's bounce pass after Sam Lisone and Albert Vete ripped through the middle of the field. That's the platform that we want Johnson to play off of, instead of doing everything, he can just use his speed, footwork and wide range of passes to make the most of an offload or quick play the ball.
As always, Ben Matulino was our best forward (running for 145 metres plus 3 offloads) but he had great support from Jacob Lillyman who played his best game of the season, running for 125 metres. With these two both going well and having Lisone and Vete come off the bench, the Warriors can lay a decent platform up front and that was the key to the win against the Tigers. The Warriors made 1591 metres compared to 1070 metres from the Tigers, a fine effort.
It's interesting to look at the metres made with each carry, because Lisone and Vete kept up the good work of the starting props. Matulino averaged 8.52 metres and Lillyman averaged 8.43 which was back up by Lisone with 7.25 metres per carry and Vete's 8.4 metres per carry.
Jonathan Wright was solid as well, while Captain Mannering held everything together beautifully in the middle of the field. I'm also warming up to Bodene Thompson, but it's a fickle relationship.
There's still some flaws that hold me back from getting worked up about this win, but in the end they did win. Don't get your expectations to high though, nor should the far from perfect display cause your expectations to be too low. A 3-3 start to the season is solid and they are showing signs that things are improving; the halves are combining nicely, both starting props are contributing nicely, Lolohea is getting better and better, Hurrell was dangerous with ball in hand, the entire forward pack including the bench were super solid.
But we haven't seen a whole lot to make you think that they could compete with the NRL's best at the moment. I reckon right now that they are top 8 material and they could, if the continue to trend upwards, could make their mark this season but there's a lot of work to be done.
Bigger picture aside, they bounced back from a loss to the Melbourne Storm and showed improvement. It was a big night with Vatuvei playing his 200th and at the very least, the Warriors matched the occasion.