Blake Green: No need for doom and gloom, Warriors ready to bounce back in NRL

Blake Green kicks. Photo / Photosport

Warriors five-eighth Blake Green on why the Warriors aren't overreacting to one poor performance, in a regular column for the Herald

There's been a lot of doom and gloom around after our performance last week, but it's important for us not to overreact.

Our display at Campbelltown was very poor, though a result like that can look a lot worse than it was.

We didn't really give ourselves a chance, but most of the issues we had are fixable.

As a team we had a combination of 22 errors and penalties, in a game where the Tigers completed at 90 per cent.

That's always a recipe for a bad night.

I know there has been some talk about complacency in our team heading into the match, and potentially there could have been.

But the 34-6 defeat has certainly brought the boys back down to earth.

We expect to be consistent every week, and last year we made some huge gains in that area. But the NRL is still hugely competitive — that's just the nature of the competition.

We beat the Roosters by 30 points in round four last year — and they won the premiership. The Eels are currently two from two, and they took the wooden spoon in 2018.

As a team, we are working hard to rectify any issues and coach Stephen Kearney has certainly reminded us of a few this week.

We need to get the fundamentals of our game right and everything else begins to flow. As an example, our kick chase was a bit scattered and all over the place last Sunday, after being so strong in round one.

In contrast the Tigers had lots of enthusiasm and continually presented a wall to Roger Tuivasa-Sheck whenever he was returning the ball.

But there are still 23 games to go, so we are not going to self destruct after round two because of a poor performance. I'm definitely not going to let any of that negativity come into our environment.

In terms of our opponents on Saturday, it's been a bit hard to judge the Sea Eagles as both their games have been played in unseasonal, wet weather conditions.

The return of Tom Trbojevic and Addin Fonua-Blake this week will make a big difference and they have gamebreakers like Daly Cherry-Evans and Apisai Koroisau, along with the power of Jake Trbojevic and Marty Taupau.

Manly will start with plenty of energy in the first 20 minutes as they look to build some confidence into their game, so we need to weather that storm.

Playing in Christchurch, after the terrible tragedy two weeks ago, is obviously a unique situation.

It's a passionate league town, but we know what they have been through is way, way bigger than sport.

But we hope we can, in our own small way, bring a few smiles to the people down there with a good performance, and the club has had plenty of community activities in the city across the week.

It also won't be easy for our team and plenty of guys have family and friends down there.

I'm a bit unsure of how they are going to handle that emotion. It is certainly a tough one to deal with but we have discussed it a lot as a group during this week.