The Storm-tossed Warriors are still searching for attacking venom after a 42-14 thrashing in Melbourne, and Andrew Webster has bigger problems on the horizon, writes Scotty Stevenson.
Shut the gate, turn off the lights, and lock the door behind you.
The Storm will win the NRL title this year, and everyone else is kidding themselves.
Craig Bellamy’s purple army was an unstoppable force against a porous sponge on Sunday in Melbourne, handing the Warriors a harsh lesson in organisation and discipline, and ultimately underlining their credentials as champions-elect.
If you went on the table alone, this was essentially three versus four, but that was a conceit concocted by the Warriors’ weird start to the season that saw them earn a quarter of their points for staying home.
If you ventured a column farther to the right, points differential would have told a different story, and the result looked more like one versus fifteen, than three versus four.
The action was no different. The Storm were relentless in the opening half, piling on 36 points and effectively sewing up the match before Andrew Webster could force his pupils back into a forward-facing position.
The Warriors’ gaffer’s eyes had rolled so far back it was as if he spent most of the first forty minutes examining the contents of his frontal lobe. This was one of those afternoons during which everything that could have gone awry for the Warriors, did.
Losing James Fisher-Harris to a pectoral injury, losing Jackson Ford to the sin bin, losing Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad to concussion, losing all sense of shape and defensive rhythm - you would not have wanted to be a set of Warriors’ car key, or a hotel swipe card, they would have been lost, too.
The Storm were relentless. The Warriors were reduced to an inferior RPM as Melbourne’s incendiary ruck speed and strike power were on full display.
It was a Warriors mistake that led to the opener, a harbinger of what was to come, perhaps. If you want to beat the Storm you simply have to take every opportunity available.
The visitors won a free possession off the opening kick, but turned the ball over three tackles later, and one tackle later the Storm were in at the other end.
You could have forgiven the camera operators if even they were taken by surprise.
What should have been a bonus opener for the Wahs was a Xavier Coates gift 85 metres in the other direction.
It was the same names over and again in the opening 30 minutes, and all of them were in purple. Hughes, Grant, Munster, Papenhuyzen, Katoa, Coates – names on repeat like a roll call of tactical brilliance.
If you had those five names on a game day bingo card you would have swept the pool within the first 30 minutes and gone home with a meat pack and bragging rights.
Add to that the power of Utoikamanu and King and the constant menace of Loiero (one of four to score in the period Jackson Ford spent sitting down pondering the late tackle rules) and you could be forgiven for thinking the Storm could have done this with ten.
All is not lost, however. Fisher-Harris and Klokstad will likely be gone next week (Niukore also left the field for a head injury assessment but returned to action later in the match) but the Warriors were at least better in the second stanza, and not just because of the fait accompli scoreline gave Jahrome Hughes a chance to sit back and plot the downfall of the Dolphins next Friday.
As desperate as it may sound, this is the reality check the Warriors needed.
Getting a hiding from the Storm in this mood, at this time of the season, is a much better scenario than letting tight wins against the Sea Eagles, Tigers, and Roosters give a false impression of greatness – internally or externally.
Coach Andrew Webster won’t miss the opportunity to run a stock take on where this team is really at, and he’ll have less than a week to work on the parts of the game that still aren’t firing.
The biggest of all is the team’s ability to transition to defence, especially after errors.
As Webster said in the post-match press conference:
“There were big momentum swings, and we didn’t know how to handle that at all, and we didn’t get to play our game as a result of poor defence today, and it just wasn’t good enough.”
It may not get to Storm-level good, but it has to be better against the Broncos on Saturday.
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