The Warriors have bounced back in style, keeping their NRL top-two finals race alive with a crushing 42-6 victory over the Gold Coast Titans at Cbus Super Stadium.
After stumbling against Canterbury last week, the New Zealand side produced a dominant eight-try rout on last night. The crucial win secures their 13th victory of the season, keeping them within two competition points of the second-placed Sydney Roosters alongside a superior points differential.
A high-flying first half saw the visitors race to a 26-6 lead at the break, thanks to tries from Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Alofiana Khan-Pereira, Chanel Harris-Tavita, Leka Halasima, and Jacob Laban. The Warriors then sealed the drubbing in the second half through Eddie Ieremia-Toeava and a double from playmaker Te Maire Martin.
Reflecting on the bounce-back performance, Warriors lock Erin Clark said, “I just liked the way we bounced back from last week. We hold really high standards here at the club and we didn’t meet the standards last week.”
“We’ve got a little bit to work on defensively today but, overall, really proud about the performance and just a better 80 minutes too,” Clark said. “We owe it to ourselves and our fans and just to bounce back from last week, so that’s amazing.”
Fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad echoed the sentiment after the statement win.
“That was awesome,” said Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad. “We wanted to play a brand of footy that we would be proud of and, man, there was a lot of good patches there where that was us. That’s been us for the majority of the year this year.”
The Warriors now turn their attention to a massive test of their title credentials against ladder-leading Penrith in Auckland on Friday night.