Blake Green: The three words that will define the rest of the Warriors' NRL season

Blake Green. Photo / Getty Images.

From now until the end of the season, three words will define our campaign.

Never Give Up.

That's our reality for every moment of each game.

Our position on the NRL ladder means we don't have much margin for error, so we have to be even more focused on perseverance and persistence.

That is what got us the reward last week against the Knights.

Going in at 12-2 down at halftime, after a couple of things had gone against us, the boys had every opportunity to drop their heads.

All the pressure was on us, and Newcastle's young team were playing without much expectation on them.

But we remained calm and confident, positive we could turn things around.

New NZ Warriors signing Blake Green at Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland. NRL rugby league. 10 January 2018 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Jason Oxenham.

The second half was much better, but, as has been well publicized, there were some refereeing calls that didn't go in our favour.

At that point we had two choices; give it away and say 'it's not our night', or decide to hang in there through effort.

If you don't keep producing effort, nothing is going to come your way.

The way the game finished, with Sam Lisone diving over with five minutes to go, was an illustration.

You don't get tries like that without constantly putting yourself in the picture, in every play and hopefully the footy gods give you one back. If you sulk about it, things aren't going to turn at all.

It's the kind of attitude we have been aiming for all year, which is why it was a pleasing result.

We had a long trip home though; we got back to our hotel around midnight on Saturday, then had to be up at 6am the next day for our recovery session.

After that we had a two and half hour bus ride to Sydney, before our flight was delayed by three hours. Most of us eventually got home after 9pm.

Our sessions this week have been a bit lighter, as it is about managing the load during this month of constant travel. But we had a good training on Wednesday and are feeling fresh.

I was really impressed with Peta Hiku last week, with some of the crisp plays on the left edge.

When you are not winning games, it's hard to have the confidence to do those some of those things, plus there were slippery conditions. But he's got a touch of class about him with those skills.

There will be plenty of focus on Kodi Nikorima this weekend on his return to Brisbane, but that won't bother him.

He's used to the big occasion and he showed his mettle on his Warriors debut, against the Dragons at Suncorp, plus he has already faced his old club once, in our 8-2 defeat in round eleven.

That match still burns in the memory. They competed so hard and didn't go away all night.

There was so many moments where I thought they were going to break and crack under pressure, we had that many repeat sets, but we just couldn't get through them.

The opening 20 minutes is huge for us on Saturday.

Their young kids don't have any fears or doubts around losing games because they haven't been there before, so we need to make sure we have a really strong start and don't give them any more confidence than they have already got.