Warriors to fly flag on Anzac Day

In recent years the club have shied away from being called the ‘New Zealand’ Warriors, but for their traditional Anzac Day clash against the Storm, there’s no getting away from the fact that they’re representing this country.

There’s something special about this Anzac Day game, which has become one of the most significant fixtures on the calendar for both clubs.

The NRL do a superb job at commemorating Anzac Day and this game annual game between teams both sides of the Tasman has become a must-be-at event for New Zealanders living in Melbourne.

Even in an AFL-dominated city like Melbourne, this game means something.

There will be the usual pregame events and anthems before kickoff, but once that’s over with, the coaches will be wanting their players to focus on collecting two valuable competition points.

It’s the eighth game of the season for both clubs and by this stage the ladder has become a truer indicator of how good the teams are.

That’s good for the Storm, who are in second, but not so for the 11th-placed Warriors.

So everything is pointing towards a Melbourne victory at AAMI Park tonight.

However, assistant coach Steve McNamara feels the Warriors have been building and are catching up with the Storm.

‘‘Without a doubt I think we’re going in the right direction,’’ McNamara said.

‘‘Obviously we would have liked to have another win or so next to our name, but the players are feeling confident and the coaches are confident that we’re pushing forward into the right direction.

‘‘We’re already a tough team to beat, but we’re going to get stronger as the season goes on.’’

Having beat the Knights in round one, the Warriors got a real idea of where they were when they hosted the Storm a week later.

It was a game played in torrential rain and was a comfortable 26-10 win for Craig Bellamy’s side.

‘‘Everything we were trying to put in place was relatively new at that stage,’’ McNamara said.

‘‘When you play the Storm you know they’re going to hold onto the ball for long periods of time and we managed to do that back to them as well.

‘‘We’re trying to play a style that suits our team and obviously suits trying to win a competition.

‘‘Melbourne have been the benchmark for that over a number of years, with how they defend and control possession, but we’ve been making some strong strides in that direction.’’

The Warriors have named Ben Matulino on the bench for this game. It won’t be known if he’ll get to play his first game of the season because of a knee injury until an hour before kickoff.

But if he does, McNamara feels he could make a similar impact to the one Kieran Foran did a few weeks ago.

‘‘He’s an international standard prop,’’ McNamara said.

‘‘His form in the last 12 months probably, I wasn’t here so I can’t speak first hand to that, but it maybe wasn’t to that standard.

‘‘But we all know that Ben is playing at his best he’s a real handful. A lot was made of when Kieran Foran came into the team in the halves, in terms of giving us a boost in that area.

‘‘But when your No 1 front rower comes back in and is playing to an international standard, that’s as big a boost as anything.’’