It's only a magic diamond because Bull and Gav are there.

Be humble.

Kendrick Lamar's new song should serve as a timely reminder to Aotearoa Warriors fans around the world to be humble. Not to get too carried away with a win over Gold Coast Titans, not to get too carried away with the impact of Kieran Foran and not to get too carried away with the Warriors' short-term future.

Be humble; understand that the Titans were down on troops heading into this game and then suffered injuries during the game as well as enduring a wild week of weather. Given those factors, there was little hope for the Titans in that second half as fatigue became a factor and if Shaun Johnson and Kieran Foran are running at blokes who are fatigued, jah help those defenders.

Even defensively, the Warriors improved as the game went on. With the game in the balance, the Warriors relied on their defence to restrict Gold Coast's metres and straight up bullied the Titans on defence. The disparity between the two teams in the last 20 minutes should tell you all you need to know, however that the Warriors showed an extra gear on defence is encouraging. I can't remember the last time I saw a Warriors team rip in for a full set of defence, rushing up off the line and putting a few shots on, let alone for multiple sets.

Foran's Mt Smart debut was slick, however it's what went on around Foran that really caught my eye. This reinforces my belief that coach Stephen Kearney was chillin' for the opening rounds as we simply didn't see the decoy runners, support runners or creative set-plays that we saw in this game.

While Foran definitely showed his class with standard solid kicking game and intent to run the footy, seeing James Gavet, Jacob Lillyman, Ligi Sao, Simon Mannering and Sam Lisone run strong decoy lines, inside and outside the ball-players, was far more encouraging. It's not Foran who is in charge of what the decoy runners do, the decoy runners are responsible for the lines they run, the intent they run their decoy with and generally being in the right place when called up.

This is a shape that we can expect the Warriors to roll out a lot and it starts with Foran (or Johnson) running to the line. See how Foran is close to the Titans line with Lillyman on his inside and Gavet on his outside as genuine options to catch the footy, while Johnson swoops around the back. This creates a diamond type of shape and the defence must first worry about Foran's running ability, then whether Lillyman or Gavet could get it, before they can even start to think about Johnson appearing in the move very late.

The presence of Lillyman and Gavet keeps defenders condensed, allowing space out wide for Johnson to shovel it on to Tuivasa-Sheck and if Tuivasa-Sheck's one-on-one out wide then yikes.

Below is the play for Foran's try and Johnson is passing the ball to Foran after he threw dummies to Sao and Lillyman who were running 'unders' lines. Two players in motion back in field and then Gavet runs a decoy off Johnson's hip which creates a nice juicy bit of space for Foran.

For Ryan Hoffmans late try, we once again see the diamond shape with Charlie Gubb on Foran's inside and Sam Lisone on his outside, Johnson swooping as he did in the first image. Kevin Proctor (Titans' far left) has to pay respect to Foran's ball-playing with a possible short pass to Lisone before he even thinks about Johnson, by that time Johnson is on his outside and Hoffman's on his way to score.

The combination of Foran and Johnson is nice, however it's only made possible thanks to the work of the forwards and how they execute their job in these moves. Special praise for Gavet because he runs the decoy for the short-ball in the first two examples, both of which led to tries and it's silly to ignore how important those decoy runs are.

Again, look past the headlines of Foran's return and you'll find a performance from the Warriors team that serves as their recipe for success:

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck had his usual 20+ carries/200m+ game (24 carries, 209m) and need I remind y'all how important Tuivasa-Sheck's running game is?

Johnson and Foran both had over 10 carries each.

Issac Luke had over 5 runs and if Luke's got over 5 runs for 50m, then the Warriors will win most of those games (Luke had 8 runs for 119m).

A middle forward averaged over 10m/per-carry. Jacob Lillyman averaged 10.56m/per-carry and as long as the Warriors have a forward close to, or over that 10m/per-carry mark, they'll go alright.

On top of that, the other middle forwards were closer to 10m/per-carry. James Gavet averaged 9.54m/pc, Ligi Sao averaged 8.66m/pc and Sam Lisone averaged 8.64m/pc.

The Warriors' completion rate was over 80 percent (86).

The Warriors missed 21 tackles vs 35 from Gold Coast. If the Warriors are missing less than 20 tackles, they're gonna be in the contest.

Be humble, because if the Warriors have 54 percent of the footy, they'll probably win but not many teams will give the Warriors that much ball, or miss as many tackles as Gold Coast did.

As expected, this game spread the good vibes. The reality is that the Warriors won a game they should have won and we really need to fight against the hype-beast that is the mainstream media. When the Warriors were figuring things out in the opening rounds, these folk went overly negative as they tend to do - 'the Warriors attack was horrible against the Bulldogs' ... no shit Sherlock because Johnson had Ata Hingano and Tui Lolohea instead of Foran and Tuivasa-Sheck.

Now that the Warriors put a win on the board, they'll drum up the hype. We've only just seen our first glimpse at the upside of this Warriors team, just as we've only recently seen how Kearney is thinking in terms of team selection. Greater challenges and more development awaits so be humble.

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