Hearty, hearty, hearty ... hopefully the Warriors put in some hearty performances soon.

Was I confident of a Warriors victory in Brisbane on Friday night? Not at all. Throw in injuries to Blake Ayshford and Manu Vatuvei and the writing was on the wall, especially against a Broncos side that is finely tuned and poked at any exposed Warriors' weakness until they found points.

There's a lot of negativity around the Warriors right now, however when you consider just how good the Broncos have been - which leads to how good they are right now, two rounds into the 2016 season - the Warriors were always going to struggle. All of our star players could have been on fire and the Broncos could have still won, such is their defensive know-how and their execution on attack. This is a slept on factor but was clearly evident in the Broncos first try, which many would put down to poor defence but it's also a great set-play from the Broncs, unexpected and perfectly executed #Salute.

An over-eager Bodene Thompson gave away a silly penalty trying to slow Anthony Milford's play-the-ball. Off the tap, Jack Reed passes in-field to Alex Glenn and the Warriors' right-edge prepares to load up on Glenn, as any NRL team would.

Glenn steps off his right and we know this is a set-play because Reed is ready to run a decoy with the ball going out the back to Milford.

Milford's speed gives him a pretty easy 2 v 1 with Shaun Johnson who is defending on the wing, as is usually the case off these taps.

I've highlighted this try because regardless of your views on the Warriors' defence, I doubt that there are many teams who could stop a play like this from the Broncos. Sure, now that they have run it, teams might be prepared for it but if you're seeing it for the first time and the Broncos do it perfectly as they did here then good luck.

This play also shows a certain level of creativity, a level of creativity that hasn't been evident in the Warriors' play. The Warriors still ran through their list of plays, hanging too far back from the Broncos' defensive line, lacking any sort of incisive threat but also lacking the variety of plays that was evident in the Broncos' attack.

Going into this game, there was daylight between the two teams. With Ayshford and Vatuvei off the park, the Broncos were always going to win and win pretty easily. Nathaniel Roache was called on to play out on the edge, defending alongside Jeff Robson which was a recipe for disaster in this instance. Defending on the edge is bloody tough, especially against the Broncos who have different runners hitting different angles AND either Ben Hunt, Darius Boyd or Milford in the mix as well. Roache was thrown to the wolves and the wolves devoured him, along with Robson as the two combined to miss 5 tackles.

Boyd and Matt Gillett both slipped in between Roache and Robson to score. These tries were far too easy and reflect poorly on the Warriors' edge defence however having a back up hooker defending on the edge thanks to injuries, against a team like the Broncos is never going to end well.

The Broncos are here.

And the Warriors are about here.

That's okay, I can cop that the Broncos are/were better. What I was really interested about was how the Warriors responded to their performance last week, which left me a bit confused.

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On the one hand the Warriors tried their best to play solid footy, they even took 2 points! They completed 86% of their sets (vs 76% from the Broncs), they only made 5 errors (vs 12), they only gave up 5 penalties (vs 8) while there was also a visible intent to kick long/early and engage the Broncos in a tit-for-tat grind. I loved this and it filled me with good vibes to see the Warriors at least trying to simply play solid, even if they couldn't really do this to the same level of the Broncos.

Lazy chasers and poor kicking limited the effectiveness of this, however the intent was there. The execution was not.

That was cool, however the Warriors won't win an NRL Premiership playing solid footy ... no team will. Not even the Broncos, who get through their sets, kick long, chase hard and generally tick off all those cliched 1-percenters but also mix in some low key razzle dazzle and individual flair. The Warriors would benefit greatly - as I said a lot last season - from going the unstructured route, giving them a point of difference or some sort of identity instead of trying to emulate how other teams play.

I must reinforce this - there is no signature style to the Warriors' play. No identity, which is troubling as they will never win anything copying other teams.

Nor will they win with Shaun Johnson and Issac Luke running for a combined 25m. Two of the most dangerous ball-runners in the NRL only ran the footy 4 times, which is astronomically stupid. They are two key weapons for the Warriors when running the footy, yet they didn't run the footy? SJ6 did that last week so he gets a pass but for Luke, that's two games in a row and he'd better be warming into his work or else there's no real point in him being there. Not when he's also missing 4 tackles.

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck missed a few crucial tackles, not ideal but meh, a lot of other blokes also missed crucial tackles. Tuivasa-Sheck also ran for over 200m (again) which is kinda expected when he's taking 25 carries and incredibly tough carries at that, but this leads me to a huge concern of mine from this game and that's the forwards.

Jacob Lillyman was better this week with 17 carries for 134m, however no other Warriors' forward ran for over 100m. Just like how SJ6 and Luke aren't fairly useless if they aren't running the footy, Ben Matulino isn't much value if he's only taking 9 hitups in 63 minutes (78m). Sam Thaiday did similar numbers in only 40 minutes and six Broncos players took 10 or more hitups while only two Warriors (Lillyman and Ryan Hoffman) did the same.

That's why Tuivasa-Sheck is smashing himself, running into three or four Broncos' forwards 25 times a game as the forwards stand around enjoying the show.

Even more baffling is that Sam Lisone was only on the park for 19 minutes. You'd have to be blind not to note that Lisone is the Warriors forward who offers the most impact, yet he's barely on the field. The Warriors clearly lack an aggressive edge, a touch of ruthlessness and the two blokes who offer that in Lisone and James Gavet (who I like, always ripping in) don't get the game time they deserve.

The lack of influence or impact from the Warriors' key players or veterans is a major concern, however it's also a reason to optimistic. The Broncos were clearly better than the Warriors and pounced on a bit of misfortune via injuries, however the Warriors stayed in the contest despite pretty much nothing from SJ6, Luke, Tuivasa-Sheck and any of their best forwards.

That's hard to stomach right now, however at some stage this season the Warriors and their key components will start to play to their potential. It will happen, I don't know when but it's crazy to expect these players to maintain this level of play for the whole season. They'll get there, don't worry.