Time for the second leg of Aotearoa Warriors road trip and prior to the game against Parramatta, I set a goal of returning to Aotearoa with a win. Throw in a gritty loss with that win and I'd be fairly happy, so ahead of Saturday's fixture against Gold Coast, the Warriors have already ticked the gritty loss box (gritty in that they didn't get smoked) and now they've gotta beat Gold Coast.

I'm certainly not confident though, not because of how the Warriors are playing but this Titans team can't be slept on when they're almost able to roll out their strongest-17. After playing centre for a few weeks, Jarryd Hayne will take up his preferred spot at fullback and give the Titans a very handy spine of Hayne, Kane Elgey, Ash Taylor and Nathan Peats with Tyrone Roberts adding some spark off the bench. There's also the possible return of Agnatius Paasi (named on extended bench) which could bolster a strong Titans forward pack and even without Paasi, Jarrod Wallace and Ryan James will be joined by future Warrior Leivaha Pulu through the middle.

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Wallace is likely to push Jacob Lillyman out of Queensland's squad for game two of State of Origin and that should tell you all you need to know about the two forward packs. Of course, we're hoping that this little Origin trial brings out the best in Lillyman and the battle of the incumbent and the young buck could then seep through to either team's forward packs as the Warriors veteran forward pack take on a far younger Titans forward pack.

James Gavet is out injured which is a bummer as I would have loved to have seen Gavet rampaging towards James and Pulu. Who would have thought at the start of the season that Gavet would be our second-best forward (Simon Mannering's sublime) when the likes of Lillyman, Ben Matulino and Ryan Hoffman are still around and then Gavet has over-taken a lad like Albert Vete who had plenty of positive vibes last year. So yeah, no Gavet and it's not up to the veteran forward pack to compete against a dynamic Titans pack.

I suspect the Titans would have noted how opposition teams have over-run them recently and they'll be eager to move the footy around, testing the efforts of the Warriors on their inside shoulders. Pulu is crucial to this as he leads the Titans with 17 offloads (Mannering leads the Warriors with 11) and while his offloads/passes can be risky, it compliments the skills and style of Gold Coast's halves. Elgey and Taylor are slick operators who can sum a play up quickly and then have the audacity to try something funky, which then matches up nicely against how the Warriors have struggled.

Assessing what the Warriors need to do to win this game is kinda silly because they just need to play better. After the loss to Parramatta, it was mistakes, lapses in concentration and really dumb shit that couldn't be explained, which was responsible for that loss. There's not a whole lot tactically or stylistically that the Warriors need to do, they just need to play better footy.
I've settled on this as Stephen Kearney's general game plan: grind the first stanza, keep it simple, complete sets, kick-chase well and then in the second half, push some offloads and have attacking intent around the ruck as the opposition tires.

There's nothing wrong with that and I kinda like that, but the Warriors simply haven't been able to execute it. Last week they made too many mistakes and conceded too many penalties, so the Warriors just gotta play better footy. The best-case scenario for this game is not only that the Warriors win, it's that they play 80 minutes of footy exactly how Kearney wants them to play. We haven't seen that yet and as I'm optimistic about what the forwards will do through the middle, it's hard to expect Shaun Johnson to have another shocker, or for Tuivasa-Sheck to give away another super-silly penalty.

Inconsistency plagues the Warriors and hence they are so frustrating, yet more often than not I've seen Johnson bounce back strongly from such a performance. Ideally worst performances aren't that bad, I can't say Johnson stays in that lull though and he was the missing piece to the puzzle last week along with a dominant game from Tuivasa-Sheck; Issac Luke was MVP and Kieran Foran was as steady as we want Johnson to be.

Given the form that Luke is in, you'd hope that Tuivasa-Sheck lingers around the ruck ready to pounce on a half-break or any glimpse of an opportunity. I'd like to see Johnson and Tuivasa-Sheck play around the footy a lot, hover around the ruck as they are a nightmare to defend when running at stagnant defenders. Leave Foran to organise things and get the light-footed runners in the best position to benefit from Luke's work.

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