We’ve been here before, but this Warriors team look decent – Editorial
Eight weeks from now, we’ll know just how special this Warriors team really were.
It’s too early to say they’re the team to break the ceiling and claim a first NRL premiership.
We’ve been here before plenty of times over the past 30 years, only to watch in muted acceptance as the Warriors collectively stagnate, tire and be overwhelmed by the pressure cooker of finals football.
Australian teams packed with Origin stars have consistently peaked at finals time, whereas Warriors teams have consistently peaked when those same stars are playing Origin.
But don’t even whisper it, this side look like a team capable of putting past demons to bed.
With the All Blacks jetting off to South Africa for a winter tour, the biggest sporting show in New Zealand over the weekend was the Warriors.
A Friday clash with minor premiers-in-waiting, Penrith, who bested them in the game of the season earlier this year, was always going to be a mouthwatering prospect.
The Warriors brought out their first haka, then for 75 minutes of the game they obliterated a team who have won the competition four of the past five years.
It was the statement performance of a season already full of great ones.
Andrew Webster now finds himself in a dreamland of his own making.
His style of coaching – which has turned the Warriors into one of the NRL’s least flashy but most consistent sides on attack and defence – is working.
He’s built fitness monsters in Jackson Ford, Erin Clark and Mitch Barnett and paired them with exciting talents like Leka Halisima and Alofiana Khan-Pereira.
The focus is simple but effective – play the game at the right end of the field, don’t try anything risky in your own half, outlast your opposition.
Over 80 minutes, they’ve done just that 14 times already this year.
Star halfback Luke Metcalf could easily have been an off-field distraction after he announced he wanted to leave at the end of the year, but instead of shutting him out, Webster sent him back to the NSW Cup team to find his game.
Metcalf is now back, seemingly to his best, with his two-try performance on Friday.
If he can replicate his early 2025 form in the next eight weeks, the depth he offers lifts the Warriors into the title conversation.
In Webster’s men, we’re beginning to believe.