Warriors front over thumping at hands of Storm
The Warriors aren’t hiding from the fact that they had a horrendous night at the office against the Storm on Wednesday.
The 50-10 blowout in Melbourne brought the team crashing back to earth, with it being their second loss in three weeks.
The worst period of the game came between the 13th and 21st minute when they conceded 24 points in eight minutes.
Warriors centre Anthony Gelling admitted they were completely outplayed during that time and indeed the first half, where they were blitzed 38-0.
Having looking so impressive when defeating the Dragons at the weekend, few would have predicting the Warriors would have been on the receiving end of such a thrashing. But walloped they were.
‘‘There are a few things you could put it down to,’’ reflected Gelling.
‘‘But for me personally, I thought we felt a bit threatened by the shape they put on out wide. I was thinking about that, rather than guys rolling up the middle. We just didn’t really have our heads on.’’
As well as the result, there is more bad news with Issac Luke possibly out for six weeks with a knee injury and the jury is still out on whether the passing at dummy half by his replacement, Jazz Tevaga, is up to NRL standard.
But if you go searching, you can find a couple of positives for the Warriors in the Storm defeat.
David Fusitu’a was again sensational, scoring two tries and he has to be regarded as one of the best wingers in the league this season.
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck also went well, running for 204 metres and the second half the team did show some spirit.
Yes, the Storm had already checked out by that point, knowing they had the two points in the bag, but in previous years, the Warriors would have completely capitulated.
Gelling said the message in the changing shed at half time was to salvage some pride.
‘‘We tried to pick ourselves up a bit,’’ he said.
‘‘Obviously the mood was going to be down after taking an ass whipping like that, but we had to regroup and in the second half, we couldn’t do any worse than the first. So we had nothing to lose and went at it a bit more.
‘‘The second half showed that we can play footy once we make our adjustments, but obviously, we’ve got to make them quicker, we can’t be leaking 30 points in 20 minutes or whatever it was, we’ve got to be better.’’
As bad as the Warriors played, it’s also worth noting how impressive the Storm were.
They hadn’t had the best of starts to the season, twice losing to Wests TIgers, as well as to the Sharks. But in their last three games, they’ve scored 124 points and conceded just 44.
‘‘It looked like they’d really done their homework and they were prepared,’’ Gelling said of the Storm.
‘‘Some of the shots they took at us, was stuff we hadn’t seen.
‘‘In the first half, they got us with a little kick in between me and my winger, so obviously they knew there was something there.
‘‘It was just their night. Everything they tried seemed to come off for them. They executed everything really well.’’
Now’s not the time to reach for the panic button with the Warriors.
They may have been outclassed on Anzac Day, but they still look like a top eight team.
However, if they want to be regarded as a top four team, it’s crucial that they bounce back in their round nine game against the Tigers at Mt Smart Stadium.
‘‘All we can do is learn from what happened,’’ Gelling said.
‘‘So we’ll take those lessons and put them into what we do next week.’’