If anyone was hoping that Aotearoa Warriors trauma would easily be vanquished with the swing of sword here, or a prayer there - cheer up. Warriors trauma was on full display in last weekend's loss to Dragons and the game was so diabolical that it those vibes permeated throughout the Dragons and from my perch in Aotearoa I can have a chuckle at all the shenanigans. The thing that stuck with me from the loss was the rather magical nature of Warriors trauma and how it really doesn't matter who is part of the wider Warriors franchise; the trauma and fear has popped up throughout their history.

With that in mind, I have no idea what is going to happen leading into any Warriors game to finish this season. As they have done throughout their history, the Warriors can lose to shit teams and trouble good teams. The Warriors can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and bowl a no-ball, then a wide with their cricketing opponents needing 2 runs to win off the last ball.

However you want to slice this: such mayhem is part of the Warriors journey.

Chad Townsend playing with a busted shoulder and Tohu Harris playing 23 minutes definitely didn't help, nor did the absence of Reece Walsh. All of these little notes go into the boil up and at some stage one must salute the footy gods and move forward. In losing to the Dragons, it should be noted that at least the Warriors aren't the Dragons right now.

On Sunday the Warriors face Cronulla Sharks and I'm in no position to ‘preview’ the game. All I know is that I'm kinda excited to see this group of Warriors playing together and while following the low key craft of Harris is a fun footy exercise, team-building is also fun to observe. Reece Walsh, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Matt Lodge were not part of the Warriors in round one of this season. The additions of these three have flipped the energy on it's head as the Warriors aren't lacking pure footy talent and aggressive running stacked with intent.

We have all seen what Walsh is capable of. Last week Watene-Zelezniak played his first game for the Warriors and in any sporting context, assessing a player starts with what's the one thing they do really well; Watene-Zelezniak runs really, really hard.

Almost cringe-worthy hard. Watene-Zelezniak is an athletic freak and that's why he debuted way back in 2014, yet such athletes tend not to come with such disregard for his safety in contact. Every time Watene-Zelezniak ran the footy vs Dragons, his zip and aggression caught my eye. That was with Roger Tuivasa-Sheck at fullback and since the emergence of Walsh at fullback, I've been pretty damn chuffed to have the best ball-runner in either code put in a position where all he has to do is run the footy.

The most important play-making position right now in the NRL is fullback. Walsh averages at least 1 try assist, 1 linebreak, 1 offload and 3 tackle busts per game. That is effective play-making and the only niggly thing against Walsh is seeing him run into defensive lines on kick returns. Now the Warriors have Tuivasa-Sheck and Watene-Zelezniak flanking Walsh and part of my fun Warriors vibe at the moment revolves around a possibly lethal back-three.

Adding Lodge is equally as fun. Addin Fonua-Blake played 76 of the 89 minutes last weekend with 19 runs for 192m @ 10.10m/run and 38 tackles @ 100 percent. The Warriors have a healthy stock of forwards who around the consistency of Harris can chime in with dominating performances, although there is a wee lack of scary Warriors forwards.

However you feel about Lodge, his combo with Fonua-Blake should get you a little hyped to see a monster forward pack - that has not been present in a long time. Lodge was thrown in every direction at the end of his Broncos tenure and while his future was up in the air, Lodge registered 29 tackle busts and 19 offloads in his last six games for Broncos. That's six consecutive games of 2+ tackle busts and 2+ offloads, averaging 4.83 tackle busts and 3.16 offloads per game.

Not too shabby for any middle forward, any time. Slightly more impressive for a bloke like Lodge who has a long history of being in the NRL news cycle and didn't have what most of us crave with some level of certainty or stability while finishing up at the Broncs. The prospect of Fonua-Blake and Lodge working together, among the other Warriors forwards is equally as funky as a back-three of Walsh, Tuivasa-Sheck and Watene-Zelezniak.

The Warriors sit 12th on the ladder and we might as well call this the Warriors whare. Since 2012, the Warriors have finished between 8-14th for nine consecutive seasons and now they are 12th. The Warriors have lived in this zone and there doesn't seem to be anything new about this season in that regard. Somehow though, this team has got a much more fun over the course of the season and despite them being in the exact same position they are always in, I'm still eager to see how this all plays out.

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