By Sam Ackerman
It was far from perfect, but the Warriors win in Newcastle showed one important thing - the Warriors do possess a ruthless streak.
Now they just need to use it regularly.
The Warriors ended the night back inside the NRL top eight after thrashing the Knights 50-14. After an eye catching performance against the Broncos last weekend, nothing less than victory was acceptable and if we're honest, there were shaky signs in the first half at Hunter Stadium.
After making all the early running, Warriors fans would have felt slightly nervous as several Warriors lined up for servings of Sione Mata'utia's left hand fend like a wedding buffet. That the worst team in the league were still in touch nearing halftime was cause for some alarm.
But the Warriors response showed this is a team starting to overcome the mental fragility that's plagued their recent seasons. They took their chances when they came and when they found something that worked, they didn't deviate.
If David Fusitu'a is carving them up, why bother shifting the ball to the left? They found a specific weakness in their opponent and were relentless. That sounds like a description of a Storm or Cowboys gameplan, not the Warriors in recent times.
Even when Johnson came off, the cue didn't go in the rack. It would be easy to coast when the game's out of the bag but the Warriors played like they had a point to prove, which they did.
16 tries in a fortnight will give any team's confidence a boost, but the fact they didn't concede a point in the second half means they're staying focused too.
Let's be clear, chalking up big scores against Newcastle isn't an achievement that players will tell their grandchildren about in years to come. But they did what good teams do, put the bad teams to the sword, as Melbourne displayed in their dismantling of the Roosters last night.
That's often been one of the Warriors achilles heel.
I hope Manu Vatuvei's hamstring injury isn't too serious and if they do need replace him, it's with Ken Maumalo rather than a Jonathan Wright. Having an attacking force replace the ‘beast’ rather than the safe option would be my preferred option.
The Roosters come next, and given their form of late, the Warriors have to rinse and repeat last night's performance.
Newshub.
