Sizzling start bodes well for successful campaign

If history is any guide, then the Warriors are already strong chances to be part of finals football in September.

Of course nothing is guaranteed, and there are 20 matches still to play and more than five months to go in the season.

Injuries can change the shape of a campaign in a heartbeat, and the Warriors have plenty of skeletons in the closet when it comes to form fluctuations and unforseen slumps.

But, for the first time in years, the Warriors have given themselves a solid foundation across the first month of the season, and the statistical evidence based on previous records is compelling.

According to leading league statistician David Middleton, only 20 teams have managed a perfect record across the first four weeks of the season since the NRL began in 1998.

From there, 16 of those 20 teams have gone on to reach the top eight by the end of the regular season, and 14 have finished in the top four.

Only four teams have plummeted, from top of the table in April to outside the eight by September.

It last happened in 2010 with the Melbourne Storm, though there were extenuating circumstances.

In round six of that season the Storm were hit with a number of penalties for their salary cap breaches, which saw them stripped of the 2007 and 2009 Premiership titles and unable to play for points for the rest of that year. They won 14 games, but ended the season in 16th place.

Today’s opponents the Cowboys have twice missed the finals after winning

their first four matches. In 2006 they got off to a flyer — taking their first six games — after reaching the grand final the year before. But they dropped eight of 10 matches midseason, and also lost Johnathan Thurston late in the campaign.

In 1998 the North Queensland team won five of their first six matches before falling away, finishing

16th in the 20 team competition after only four more victories.

The only other instance of a club winning their first four games then missing the finals was Canberra in

2005, when Matthew Elliott’s team slumped to 14th after a promising start to the season.

Nothing tangible has been achieved with the Warriors of 2018 but something different is in the air at Mt Smart.

“We want more,” said prop Sam Lisone. “When you get that little taste, you want more. But we don’t want to get carried away . . . no one is doing that. Mooks [coach Stephen Kearney] will kick your arse, if he notices any of that.”