The mantra: we don't get too low on the Warriors unless they suck consistently and we don't get too high on the Warriors unless they are awesome consistently.

Celebrations from the Warriors win over Brisbane will be quickly shut down by noise about the Broncos fielding a weakened team and correctly so, the two points and confidence earned are very real though. Those two points don't come with an asterix and they are the same two points that the Warriors would gain if they beat any of the top teams at full-strength, plus this was another win on home turf and perhaps while you were having a whinge about the Warriors, you may have overlooked the fact that Mt Smart is a bit of a fortress.

Or at least their trying to make it a fortress. An early loss to the Storm is the exception as the Warriors have handled their business at Mt Smart against Newcastle, Gold Coast, Parramatta and now Brisbane. Those teams haven't been amazing and to really be a force in the NRL, the Warriors need to stack up wins away from home but when wrapped in some context, getting wins at home lays a nice platform. 

Compared to Brisbane's play-making quartet of Darius Boyd, Anthony Milford, Ben Hunt and Andrew McCullough, the Warriors quartet (Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Shaun Johnson, Kieran Foran and Issac Luke) don't come close to having the same number of time spent plotting and training. That Broncos quartet has built a combo on years of work, so winning home games to keep the Warriors around the top-eight and allow time for their play-makers to continue to develop as a unit is crucial. 

We don't have time to waste so games still need to be won and the Warriors are doing a solid job of doing what needs to be done at Mt Smart. The fans are getting amongst it as well, making the trip to Mt Smart for opposition teams a bit of a nightmare; they chuckled when James Roberts threw the ball away in frustration and roared when James Gavet, Albert Vete or Sam Lisone got the footy on-the-B.

Winning most of their games at Mt Smart will put the Warriors in a nice position from which they can look to snatch away wins later in the season.

This contest was a tad weird. Yes the Broncos showed off their depth and while they weren't at full-strength, they still fielded a handy NRL team that many other clubs would be jealous of. But then their most potent threat in Roberts at right centre inexplicably dropped the footy twice; there's no link between a weakened Broncos team and their most dangerous weapon having a relative shocker.

The Warriors forwards enjoyed all sorts of dominance and it's super important to note that when the Warriors are near their best, it's a team effort and not just the forwards that roll down field. That's the point of difference for the Warriors with Ken Maumalo and David Fusitua adding some size and footwork to the forward pack. So the Warriors - not just the forwards - enjoyed dominance through the middle, which made life so much easier for Luke, Foran and Johnson. They can only run the footy when they are on the front foot.

Fusitua had 14 carries and it felt as though all of them were in the middle third, doing a whole lot of grunt work. Fusitua didn't get given the footy out on the edges in an attacking movement, he rolled his sleeves up and offered value elsewhere. 

Johnson's kicking game was as good as it's ever been which is in huge contrast to last week. In two weeks we've seen opposite ends of Johnson's kicking spectrum and this season we've see Johnson generally lean towards the positive end of that spectrum, highlighting that Johnson just had a really poor game against the Dragons. I don't argue that Johnson had more time and space to kick, it's just that the banana grubber for Tuivasa-Sheck's try was the divot grubber last week. 

Johnson's try that saw him burst through the ruck area was the result of his intent and dominance through the middle. Maumalo's try was set up by an awesome run from Luke which was a result of the same combination and you can only have that positive intent if you've got some momentum or ruck speed in your favour.

And when your fullback averages 11.05m/carry, suddenly sets are starting on the front foot or poor sets can quickly became adequate. The fascination with Tuivasa-Sheck's defence, or lack of, has been funny because I wouldn't sign Tuivasa-Sheck for his tackling ability and his greatest strength is his running. The three games prior to this game saw Tuivasa-Sheck run for less than 160m each game, after running over 200m six full games straight. 

In those three games, Tuivasa-Sheck averaged 7.57m/carry. That's well below his season average of 9.59m/carry and when Tuivasa-Sheck is playing how we all hope he can - or those who think he's more influential than Johnson, like me - he is averaging over 10m/carry. 19 carries for 210 is the standard for Tuivasa-Sheck, those sorts of numbers made him the Dally M Fullback of the Year and saw him break the metres record in 2015. We should expect that from Tuivasa-Sheck and he's only dipped below that level of output against his former club and then in the losses to the Panthers and Dragons.

Expecting Foran, Johnson and Luke to run the footy as they did against Brisbane is far more dangerous and unhealthy. They won't enjoy such dominance through the middle and the subsequent ruck speed against better teams, so don't think that 15 runs each from Johnson and Foran along with 10 runs from Luke is the norm; it's the norm when you're dominating the middle. 

We can't expect that, however we know that it only takes three-five runs from Foran, Johnson and Luke to change a game. That's how dangerous these lads are when executing what they do best which is run the footy. 

I've seen this from Luke a few times though, regardless of how dominant the Warriors are through the middle. Luke drifts to the right side of the ruck and as he's moving to the right, taking the two defenders with him, he passes back across his body to the left this time to Foran.

Try walking to your right and passing to your left while in motion. It's hard and Luke's throwing a 10m bullet folks.

My favourite thing about the Warriors right now, is Simon Mannering and it's not because of his defence. Mannering is my favourite aspect of the Warriors because his presence allows you to filter out silly opinions from silly folk who love to highlight Mannering's influence defensively and completely sleep on what Mannering does in attack. 

Regular readers will know how I feel about this and bottle this yarn up to take to your homies when you're talkin' Warriors, or if you wanna impress your romantic partner just drop some rugby league nerd shit and she'll/he'll be mind-blown. Mannering runs over 100m which is standard and nice, although this came of 14 carries and Mannering isn't overly dynamic averaging 8.8m/carry. Handy, super handy when you consider what else Mannering does.

When Mannering's playing, he is in the middle of the park passing either right or left. That means that Johnson or Foran can push out wider and this led directly to Blake Ayshford's try as Mannering played first-receiver, passed out the back to Foran who then passed to Johnson who had swooped all the way over from his typical right edge to the left. In the preview I wished that Johnson would appear on both edges and he did, thanks largely to Mannering's presence as a link-man.

That was the Warriors' first try in the 11th minute and earlier, around the 5th minute, Mannering flexed in gorgeous fashion as Foran made a break down the left. 

First Mannering demands the footy:

He gets the footy like James Graham or a halfback and the Warriors have players in motion around Mannering, executing a funky set-play in the middle of the park:

Johnson and Tuivasa-Sheck are swooping out the back, which with space ahead of them is rather difficult to stop:

Keep in mind that Mannering played link-man passing to his right in the move above and then passing left for Ayshford's try. You see a tackling machine, I see an extremely talented all-round footballer and the comparison to Graham is funny because Mannering's just as good and the distant thought of them combining is excessively groovey.

The last observation was regarding Stephen Kearney's rotation through the middle as Sam Lisone and Albert Vete replaced James Gavet and Ben Matulino for the middle portion of the game. I liked this as it's a simple rotation that gives Lisone and Vete a clear role, which was especially interesting as they started the second half. The losses to the Panthers and Dragons came from terrible 20-minute spells that blew the Warriors away and after half-time, I wondered if the Broncos would target that period to get back in the game. Lisone and Vete played their part in not allowing that to happen thanks to their energy. Knowing their stint in this game would finish soon, they ripped in and maintained dominance over the Broncos which kept the Warriors in the grind until the game was sealed. 

Vete played the first three games of the season and really wasn't that bad before getting dropped. He averaged 37 minutes and 9.84m/carry which hardly warrants being dropped, then in his return to the NRL he played fewer minutes with greater efficiency; 29 minutes 12.4m/carry. 

Compare that to Ligi Sao who averaged 21 minutes and 8.2m/carry. What Kearney does with Vete and the rotation of the middle forwards will be very interesting over the coming weeks as we've got Jacob Lillyman to come back into the frame as well. I certainly don't think that Kearney has settled on his best 17, nor his best rotation and just like the Warriors spine need reps to build cohesion and instincts, Kearney needs time really understand which big boppers to use and how to use them.

As long as Mt Smart's offering wins, Kearney has a bit of time to suss things out.

Kearney knows winter's on its way and he wasn't too happy that the Warriors (and the touchy and the camera man) weren't ready for a Broncos kick-off...

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