The ups and downs of following the Warriors
Look no further than the Warriors if you love jumping on board a rollercoaster ride with no clue what twist or turn is next.
Scornfully written off and condemned to finish rock bottom before a ball was kicked, the 2018 Warriors have defied expectations and even prompted a few veteran Australian league hacks to eat their own words. How novel.
This season’s top-eight finish means a return to the play-offs for the first time since 2011. Hooray. And while taking part in the finals has been on the cards, the Warriors have been consistently inconsistent and predictably unpredictable along the way.
Their fluctuating form mirrors a fascinating NRL competition that has never been so closely contested, with just four points separating first and eighth ahead of the final regular round, and second-guessing results has been virtually impossible.
But following the Warriors this year has been compelling if you like your sport served with a slice of intriguing uncertainty, sprinkled with a hint of frustration, and a varying taste from sweet one week, to sour the next. While admiring another All Blacks thrashing of the Wallabies must be awfully satisfying, are Kiwis really watching with a similarly uncertain intrigue from the edge of their seats?
Or comfortably sat back grinning in their armchairs? Or sat down politely applauding inside Eden Park’s concrete jungle? Or toasting another Beauden Barrett try with the same beer with the same taste after the same success last year? Sport, after all, is a far more interesting spectacle when the outcome is uncertain. You can only watch the Warriors in 2018 from the edge of your seat, leaning forward with anticipation, and savour or curse their often maddening unpredictability with an alluring desire to keep tuning in.
Ahead of hosting last night the Raiders on Friday in their last game before the finals (a sold out occasion celebrating Simon Mannering’s 300th game for the club), the Warriors have won three of their last four – a run culminating with an impressive 36-16 win over Penrith that ended their finals drought in style.
The season started with five successive victories and the unhinged Warriors bandwagon was boosting around town after seven years in shackles.
But their next 14 matches tempered expectations (six wins and eight defeats) as some heavy losses led to some unease about another campaign potentially collapsing after catastrophic losing streaks spiked the bandwagon’s wheels in previous seasons.
This observer, rightly or wrongly, raised such fears after the Warriors imploded against a Panthers outfit minus their Origin stars in July, but Stephen Kearney’s troops have made a habit of bouncing back.
That crushing 36-4 defeat in Penrith was the first time the Warriors had lost successive games in 2018 as they slipped to eighth. Clubs outside the top eight were starting to smell blood but the Warriors refreshingly responded by tipping over Wayne Bennett’s Broncos for a rare 26-6 victory in Brisbane.
A narrow home loss to Melbourne followed, then another alarming 36-12 defeat on the Gold Coast, but the Warriors hit back again when downing long-time competition leaders, the Dragons, 18-12 in Sydney.
And, as their rollercoaster ride hurtles into the play-offs, there are two fun facts easily forgotten: the Warriors boast the competition’s best away record (8-4) along with the Storm ahead of the final round; and went three months without winning at Mt Smart Stadium until beating the Knights 20-4 in Auckland on August 10.
Finals football is around the bend for the Warriors next weekend. Who knows? Maybe it is their year. Expect the unexpected.