In my daily travels, I've heard a few ads encouraging fans to make their way to Mt Smart to watch the Warriors take on their Brisbane Bronco 'rivals'. Let's keep it real here as the Warriors certainly aren't the Cowboys, Broncos vs Cowboys is light years ahead of any Broncos vs Warriors rivalry. There's some historical context that always makes Broncos vs Warriors kinda interesting, this is far from a rivalry though.

This is also far from an even match up also.

Brisbane have scored 312 points, Warriors 220.

Brisbane have 347 tackle busts, Warriors 281.

Brisbane have run for 18,652m, Warriors 15,331m.

Brisbane are 3rd, Warriors 14th.

Brisbane have conceded 157 points, Warriors 300.

Brisbane have 5 wins and 1 loss at home, Warriors are 2-3 at home.

Wayne Bennett has selected the same side with minor injury changes all season, Andrew McFadden has changed his team every week.

You see where I'm going here? Whether it's the rivalry talk or general hype surrounding the return of our Warriors after a week off, it all seems a bit misplaced. I mean, if you don't like stats and what not, ponder the two squads named and I'd suggest that Brisbane have a better player in most positions. Corey Parker's better than Simon Mannering, Josh McGuire's better than Jacob Lillyman, Anthony Milford's better than Thomas Leuluai, Darius Boyd is better than Tuimoala Lolohea and so on ... Issac Luke's better than Travis Waddell so that's all good.

The advice that I'd offer fellow Warriors fans is to prepare for a loss, a loss at home. Of course we don't want our lads to lose but at least prepare for it because they are coming up against the best in the business and engaging in irrational hype will only leave you disappointed. People who don't watch the NRL but pay attention to the Warriors will blindly expect them to win this game and will then let rip when they lose, we know better.

Brisbane are good, what matters in this game is how our lads perform, their enthusiasm, their energy, their aggression ... will they show desperation on defence? Those things are hard to measure, so it's up to us to put them through the eye test and I'll only judge this crew in how they show up. The result? Those intangibles will help them win, but if they lose and they tick all those boxes, I'll be happy writing my review on Monday.

It's not looking good already though as McFadden has once again changed the team; 13 rounds in and McFadden is still yet to improve on picking the same bench combination for more than two games. I generally like the team named, I wonder what Jazz Tevaga did to get cut? What did James Gavet do wrong? What did Mathew Allwood do wrong, compared to Blake Ayshford? Those three and John Palavi are named in reserve grade.

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The recipe for success is no different to beat Brisbane...

Issac Luke must run the footy, same with Shaun Johnson.

Johnson and Leuluai must share touches, kicking.

Offload, throw the footy around.

Jacob Lillyman and Ben Matulino run over 100m.

David Fusiuta and Manu Vatuvei run over 100m.

Sam Lisone, Albert Vete, Charlie Gubb all play over 20 minutes ... not 10-15 minutes silly Cappy.

There's nothing complex to the Warriors woes and while they aren't too flash defensively, it's their offence that we should be most concerned with. Wait a minute, the Warriors are only ranked 11th in missed tackles ... that means 10 teams have missed more tackles than the Warriors.

Our Warriors, our big bad Warriors with a forward pack stacked with representative players (or former rep players) have run for the least metres in the NRL. Brisbane are 3rd while our Warriors are last and while Johnson/Luke/Leuluai haven't done a whole lot this season, how can we expect our play-makers to do their best work when the team simply isn't going forward?

The Warriors are also ranked 13th in offloads, so much for that 'coconut ball' idea right?

We've got a Warriors team that doesn't go forward and doesn't throw the footy around. And this is where I revert back to an argument that I've been putting forward for almost a year now as I am yet to see any sort of identity emerge in this Warriors group. They have no signature style and they still play pretty boring footy, watching the Warriors is far from entertaining and following their journey as they try to play a grittier style of footy has been painful.

Brisbane are one of the better defensive teams and they are coming off Origin, which is the perfect time to catch them off-guard. The Warriors won't win this game by engaging Brisbane in a grind, they'll need to throw caution to the breeze and switch on the razzle dazzle as we all wish they would. Offloads, running the footy, slick passing, shifting to edges early and generally playing with a smile is the Warriors' best chance here.

If the Warriors go down swinging then I've got no issues and they'll only land a knockout blow if they are swinging.