As Newcastle stormed back into the contest with a couple of tries against our Aotearoa Warriors, I pondered whether it could be the best start for Stephen Kearney's coaching stint if the Warriors slipped up. That's because in his first outing as Warriors coach, Kearney almost tasted the full Aotearoa Warriors experience that we have all seen and endured many times before. 

The Warriors came back and I won't go as far as to say that their ability to not crumble showed great 'mental fortitude' or anything like that. A team like Newcastle is always going to look slick when they attack with freedom, however they will finish the season as one of the worst defensive teams in the NRL so the Warriors were always going to have a chance or three to fire a winning shot.

Let's not sleep on the fact that Newcastle's surge came in conjunction with injuries to Simon Mannering and Issac Luke. In that second half, the Warriors looked young and raw which is exactly how the Knights look. We shouldn't get too high or bemoan the period in the second half when the Warriors switched off, it's round one and we've seen a fair reflection of where the Warriors are at right now; slick, skillful but in need of more NRL footy under Kearney's guidance.

We saw everything that Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is capable of. 

Tick this up as his first 200m+ game of the season.

It's hard not to be excessively excited by RTS, or to fight the feeling that we are witnessing a certain level of greatness. While I won't celebrate Jacob Lillyman's strong effort because he needs to back it up over multiple games - he looked great in sporadic patches last season - I'll happily celebrate RTS because we've seen it before.

RTS broke the run-metres record in 2015 with the Roosters and finished behind James Maloney and Mitchell Pearce in try-assist. You break the run-metres record by consistently passing 200m and you consistently pass 200m by consistently taking over 15 carries. When you have the footwork of RTS you're able to slip between defenders and power through tackles, however it's not the fancy stuff that makes RTS who he is.

Catching the ball one-pass off the ruck, RTS steams into three big forwards who are eager to smash the fullback. RTS is always there ready for the hit up, he's always running with enthusiasm and now that he's the skipper it's only amplified that he leads with his actions. 

This dude looks as good running the footy against a scrambling defensive line as he does carting the ball up like a prop. Combine that with the range of passes that we saw from RTS that either put other blokes in space or were certified try-assists and we are dealing with a rather amazing footy player. 

We saw a game that put where the Warriors are at in round one of 2017 in a capsule and in that game we saw everything that our skipper RTS can do.

We also saw a young half play his role rather nicely. Ata Hingano certainly isn't Kieran Foran, although he showed Warriors fans why we shouldn't concern ourselves with rumours or whispers regarding Foran's future. You wouldn't have heard Hingano's name mentioned too much in commentary, it's unlikely that you noted Hingano's slick touches yourself as he spent much of this game allowing others to shine; kia ora to that.

This is what the Warriors have lacked previously as Shaun Johnson has been asked to do everything. Hingano allowed Johnson to play wider on the right and along with RTS lurking on the left, the Warriors were able to pose a threat on either edge as opposed to last season when it felt as though everything was leading up to a sweeping move to the right edge. Hingano is only 19-years-old and looked composed, that's all we needed to see from the lad.

Caution comes thanks to Newcastle being Newcastle. When Hingano shifted the footy on to Johnson (classic one half passing to the other with no forward touching the ball) and Johnson put Fusitua over to score, Newcastle's defensive backed off too easily. Against better opposition, their defensive will be pushing up from the inside or rushing up off their line outside-in, let alone moving forward as a defensive line. Any team that lets Johnson move forward with the ball is going to be in trouble.

Lillyman was beastly up the guts as were most of the forwards but as I said; we've seen it before. We have to assume that the class and experience of Lillyman, Ryan Hoffman and Simon Mannering will ensure that they can play at a similar level to what they rolled out here, all season. Hoffman ran tremendously well, while Mannering showed that he's much more than the tackling machine he was last season before he left the field injured.

It does feel like a Warriors forward pack could struggle against the best though. Albert Vete, Charlie Gubb, Sam Lisone and Lillyman are all fairly similar in their strengths and body-shape, plus they're not the most mobile forwards in the NRL; mobile as in quick feet to cover the inside channels on defence or bursting on the ball and cutting behind the ruck on attack. They dominated Newcastle's pack and they should have as the Knights lack top-shelf forwards.

There's so much x-factor and skill in the backline that it may not matter but I'll be interested to see how this forward pack develops. The bloke to watch is Isaiah Papalii because he offers something different and has the mobility/power combo that could make him a force through the middle. There is a reason why Kearney felt as though he could throw Papalii in there for round one and I suspect that this will see Papalii develop to the point where he's a crucial cog off the bench, possibly at the expense of other forwards.

I'm content because we saw the Warriors play alright, yet vast improvement is required. They did what was required to beat a team that will probably finish at the bottom of the ladder and we move on to round two not overly hyped, but in a far better position to where we have been in the past.