Herald on Sunday Editorial: Warriors embody true grit

The Warriors during the round 18 NRL match against the Cronulla Sharks. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

The groundwork has been laid for the team to go on with the job.

The Warriors started something promising in this year's NRL season.

It was a season of trials and tribulations. On what seemed to be a weekly basis, something new popped up to take the focus away from their primary job of performing on the field.

To the players' credit, they shut that noise out where possible or addressed it head on if need be.

Having to leave their families behind, at least initially, and uproot on-field operations across the Tasman for months, only to have their coach fired four weeks after the season got back under way, many expected the club to simply make up the numbers.

Instead, they began to unlock their potential — progressing from strugglers to one of the form teams towards the end of the competition. Todd Payten, who took over as interim head coach when Stephen Kearney was cast out, got the team to buy in, and it showed in their performances.

Although they won't have Payten next year, the groundwork has been laid for the team to go on with the job. The Warriors have been active in the market, signing forwards Ben Murdoch-Masila, Kane Evans and Add in Fonua-Blake.

With the game reliant on mobile forwards who can dent the defence, the club is well set up.

And given it's getting to that time of the year, for what the team achieved in an ever-changing and tricky situation, and the sacrifices they made, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would knock back their claim to Team of the Year at the Halberg Awards. As a result of the Covid-19 environment, there will be contenders, but few national teams and surely none that have endured the same kind of hardship as the Warriors. It's a bid based on performance, results and, if we're being honest, a hint of sympathy. If there's any group that embodied the spirit of a team, the idea of being there for one another through every obstacle, it's this bunch of men.

And, perhaps, 2020 was only a sign of things to come.