Warriors rediscover form to down the Broncos
The Warriors have well and truly curbed fears of an end-of-season slump with an emphatic win over the Broncos at Suncorp Stadium.
Centre Solomone Kata scored a double and Issac Luke had a field day around the ruck as the Warriors led 16-0 at halftime before rolling to a 26-6 victory.
Under pressure to bounce back after back-to-back defeats, including last week’s capitulation against the understrength Panthers, the Warriors delivered the perfect responsein front of a crowd of around 30,000.
The forwards relished the fast and dry conditions, carving up the bigger Broncos pack with their second-phase play to finish with 17 offloads. Defensively they were brilliant with only a late consolation try to Andrew McCullough stopping them from recording their first clean sheet of the season.
The result lifts the Warriors to 24 points, level with the fourthplaced Panthers and Sharks.
Just as important, the Warriors retained a six-point gap over the ninth-placed Raiders with seven games to go in the regular season.
The Broncos almost scored in the opening five minutes before a desperate lunge from Roger Tuivasa-Sheck knocked the ball free from Corey Oates. And it was all Warriors from then on.
A penalty in the following set marched them upfield before Kata powered over off a simple shift to the left. Adam Blair bombed a golden chance when he failed to ground a Blake Green grubber kick but the Broncos continued to invite them in.
Shaun Johnson stamped his mark on the game with a nice piece of deception to put Gerard Beale through a gap to make it 10-0 before Issac Luke beat three defenders on the way to a brilliant solo try.
The Warriors should have been ahead by more at halftime with their attack not as clinical as Stephen Kearney would have liked. But they were clearly not going to die wondering.
Luke’s try came after they recovered a short goalline dropout, while they almost scored twice in one thrilling play only for their hands to let them down.
They were unlucky not have a one-man advantage late in the first half when the referee made the curious decision to sin bin both Chris Satae and Andrew McCullough for foul play. Satae was guilty of a raised forearm but the Broncos hooker was the only player to throw a punch.
The start of the second half was always going to be crucial and so it proved as the Broncos camped out in the Warriors red zone.
Brisbane captain Darius Boyd was awarded a try by the on-field officials only for the bunker to rule that Tuivasa-Sheck was impeded by a decoy runner.
The visitors then made the most of the let-off with the try of the day.
It was vintage Warriors featuring no fewer than six passes. Simon Mannering ignited the movement with a late offload before Johnson, Luke and a charging Agnatius Paasi all had input to send Kata over in the left corner.
Paasi then all-but sealed the result in the 54th-minute when he surged through a hole after Blake Green took the ball to the line.
It was just reward for a powerful display by Paasi, who ran for over 160m to keep the Warriors forwards on the front foot. Warriors 26 (Solomone Kata 2, Gerard Beale, Issac Luke, Agnatius Paasi tries; Shaun Johnson 3 goals) Broncos 6 (Andrew McCullough tries; Jamayne Isaako goals) Warriors HT: 16-0.