By PETER JESSUP
The Warriors defence won them a fifth consecutive victory and their new maturity was underlined when they blew fast-starting Melbourne Storm away, 28-12.
The win was their fourth in four games in Australia this season.
Attention is now on achieving victory number six when the Sydney Sharks come to Ericsson next Sunday after six consecutive losses.
The Warriors will be wary, however, because they know pride will make the opposition desperate.
That was the case in Melbourne, when the Storm blew hot for the first 40 minutes, enjoying a glut of possession.
But they could not execute and were forced into a huge number of handling errors.
When they started to run out of petrol in the second half, the Warriors put them away.
P.J. Marsh strained a knee but is getting better and is expected to be fit to tackle the Sharks.
The team's new maturity was again underlined by the fact that they lost little when he left the field, with Brent Webb carrying on the momentum and the team playing it out a man short.
Video referee Chris Ward had a busy night on a puggy Olympic Park and came up with some confusing decisions.
But Warriors coach Daniel Anderson was not griping about the denying of a try to Clinton Toopi, when Storm fullback Robbie Ross seemed to be on his back too long when held by Ivan Cleary and to lose the ball while grounding it, nor Motu Tony's being called back from a no-one-home break up the middle for a dubious knock-on call.
Anderson said: "I couldn't see the angles. But I had no problems with the ref [Mark Oaten].
"I thought he turned in the strongest performance from a referee that we've had all season."
Midway through the second half, Oaten sent the Storm's Willie Leyshon to the bin for ignoring warnings about infringements at the play-the-ball.
That happened after the Storm had repeatedly conceded ground through penalties and Warriors stand-in captain Ivan Cleary had nailed two for the points difference in a 16-12 lead at that stage.
It was closed out with a rugged efficiency, with the defence rolling the Storm backwards and stealing all their momentum.
Experienced Storm halves Matt Orford and Scott Hill led the error count, and Anderson would not accept that the mistakes were accidental.
"People don't make mistakes because they can't catch the football. They make them because of the ferocity of last tackle, because they can see someone coming out of the corner of their eye, because of the pressure put on them.
"They didn't lose that game, we won it."
Awen Guttenbeil, who before the game agreed to a two-year extension to his contract, scored first through the Storm's middle.
The home side were denied tries four times after video review, thanks to enthusiasm to the last gasp from the Warriors.
Ward allowed a try to Ross from a good break by Orford, then denied Toopi when he was first to a bomb dropped by Marcus Bai.
Orford broke up the middle to score under the posts with 34 seconds left in the half and that gave the home side a 12-8 lead.
Lance Hohaia proved his growing maturity with a darting run to beat Leyshon and Matt Geyer and twisted through the tackle of Ross to score the first points after the break.
Kevin Campion backed up from Origin One to make the break that put Tony in the clear and Justin Murphy ran from dummyhalf and went 90m and through or around half the Storm to demoralise them.
Morale at the Warriors is sky-high, and motivation is no problem for Anderson as the team enjoy the unfamiliar buzz that regular winning brings.
"We've spoken about the Sharks, those six losses and the fact that players dig deeper and put in extra effort when they're desperate. Players have a lot of pride - their attitude and motivation will be spot-on," Anderson said of Sunday's task.
North Queensland come the following Sunday, then follow Souths away, the Dragons back home then the Broncos away.
But the Warriors will go to Brisbane three days after the third State of Origin match, when the Broncos will be ripe for a beating, as were the Newcastle Knights when without their stars ahead of Origin One.
Expectation has to be that, come round 17, the Warriors will still be in the top four.
Pre-season, the TAB had them $35 to win the premiership, now they're fourth-favourites at $7.50.
There must be great satisfaction for Anderson as his team sit three points above his former mentor at Parramatta Brian Smith's Eels, who started the season as unbackable favourites and have slipped to fifth favourites.
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