We've seen the Warriors beat teams that sat below them on the ladder and we've seen the Warriors fall to teams above them on the ladder. That makes these last two results against the Gold Coast Titans and Canberra Raiders rather interesting as they were both lingering around the Warriors like that dude who won't leave you alone.

In beating the Raiders on Saturday night, the Warriors have shown that neither the Titans nor the Raiders really deserve to be discussed in the same mid-table category as the Warriors. The Raiders, as they have been all season were reasonably average on defence with only the Titans and Knights conceding more points this season, and the Warriors were able to continue that trend in reasonably easily putting a few points on the lads from Canberra.

While I think it's super important to provide some of that context - it's highly likely the Raiders won't make the top eight, we can't ignore the way the Warriors are playing. 

That's what makes these last two wins so damn sexy; the Warriors are controlling the game and with an 88% completion rate and the majority of possession against the Raiders,  they aren't letting their opponents back into the contest as they were earlier in the season. 

A lot of the praise has to fall on the shoulders of Shaun Johnson and Chad Townsend who have morphed from confused robots into smart footy players capable of balancing structure and freestyle footy. First and foremost they continue to be eager to run the football with Townsend getting through 10 carries and Johnson having 11. It's hard to quantify how important this is in numbers and what not but having the intent to run means that there's always other options available with a bit more time and space. 

Two blokes who continue to help this fact are Nathan Friend and Sam Tomkins. Friend is looking like an Olympic sprinter compared to Thomas Leuluai and that engages the markers and the defenders around the ruck into, at the very least thinking about whether there's going to be a scoot from Friend. I think earlier in the season we saw Johnson put under a bunch of pressure because teams knew that there wasn't going to be much of a threat elsewhere and they could just focus on trying to muddle Johnson's intentions.

Tomkins' presence is equally as influential and after raising the thought of it being slightly coincidental that Tomkins' return resulted in a great performance, you can't argue how beneficial he is to our halves. With Tomkins out wider, lurking as a slick passer and creator, Johnson and Townsend get that extra bit of time to make the right decision and the Raiders weren't exactly quick to put any of our playmakers under the pump.

Prior to these recent developments, I think Johnson would have opted for a safe option like a bomb or a similar sort of kick in the play that led to Tuimoala Lolohea's try. However, full of confidence and with the Raiders not keen to get up off their line and risk the ol' whack from Johnson, he took the line on and put in a kick at the line...

It's just good half-play, being able to smell the space and pounce on a tired defence while the grubber kick he delivered was pretty damn majestic in itself. We're starting to see Johnson take note of little tips and pointers that the defence give him which was the case when he scored after noticing David Shillington defending down the short-side. 

Because his role is ultimately very simple, or should be very simple, I think we overlook Townsend a bit as well. All he's got to do is kick at a high level when required and allow Johnson to push out wider where he can work with his outside men to generate an overlap. We've got to see a whole lot more of this where Johnson gets the ball on a second man play and then can play what he sees, again that balance of structure and ad-lib footy.

Finally we're seeing the Warriors keen to offload again, but also able to execute nicely instead of pushing stupid offloads which they were guilty of earlier in the season. Four offloads each from Ben Matulino, Simon Mannering and Ryan Hoffman gave the Warriors the opportunity to keep the Raiders working hard while also allowing them extra metres through the middle with quick play the balls. 

Any game where all your starting forwards bar the hooker run for 100 metres has to be celebrated, but was this thanks to a lacklustre effort from the Raiders or is this a sign of a Warriors forward pack starting to suss things out?

One bloke who has definitely sussed things out is Solomone Kata who I think has surpassed Konrad Hurrell as our best centre. No need to explain their similarities and yeah, Hurrell made Jarrod Crocker his bunny for much of this match but Kata just looks more rounded in terms of what he offers and his light footwork gets me going. Regardless, we've settled on two centres and they each offer a destructive element on attack, which is great to have on either side of the pitch.

After Charlie Gubb and Raymond Faitala-Mariner were great last week, I wanted to see it backed up with a similar display against the Raiders, tick. Grubby Gubb looks like the prop that we need, someone who is going to consistently rip in and will always bring energy and enthusiasm. RFM didn't see much game time but did make an impact when on the field, I'm not sure how he's going to be used going forward but he came on in the middle and was a handful.

I think it's time we pour some out for Saliva Havili who I wouldn't be selecting on my bench no mo'. I don't see the point in having injury cover on the bench as you can always re-shuffle things especially with Lolohea in the side and the prospect of having RFM, Gubb, Albert Vete and Sam Lisone on the bench is far too ruthless to ignore. 

The NRL is all about power and speed at the moment and we need that edge, we need to scare teams and have some mongrel about us. We don't have Kevin Campion mongrel, but we do have young forwards who want to make a mark which is great. We're in 7th and the Bulldogs in 8th are now our peer. The Bulldogs forwards are scary, they're ruthless and have some mongrel and the only way I see us being better than them is with a young bench of big boys, no more confusing wastage of positions. 

With a bye this weekend, we'll cook something up to keep ya'll entertained.