KEY POINTS:
To win a competition as physically gruelling as the NRL, a team requires special qualities.
Talent and durability are obviously needed in spades. But allied to that is timing.
Timing in sport can be the critical component.
Think of a golfer readying his challenge for a major championship;
a trainer priming his horse for the big race; or Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell hitting the front in their Olympic double sculls final in the last split second.
They had trailed for the previous 1999.5 metres but no one will remember that. History will show the only fractions of a second which counted. Their winning margin was .01s. That's cutting it fine.
Take the mind back several weeks as the equations were being calculated. Who bar the hardcore faithful would have fancied the Warriors being a game away from the Big Show as they lurched to seven defeats in nine games in mid-year.
Four wins on the trot - including a tight squeeze against the formidable Storm in round 20 - had the flame flickering, and a further four from their last five regular season games delayed players reaching for the beach ball.
From there, the Storm were seen off on a stunning afternoon in Melbourne and the Roosters taken apart on a night of high emotion and exhilarating football last week at Mt Smart Stadium.
So four straight wins, averaging 29 points and five tries a game, and the flicker has grown into a roaring Ruben Wiki-inspired fire.
And now the circle is complete; bet against the Warriors advancing to next Sunday's grand final at your peril.
So brutally were the Roosters - 13-6 up at the break, remember - dismissed that even though the Sea Eagles won their two round robin clashes, including a 52-6 round three duffing, forget them. They have no relevance now. The game has shifted.
Back to timing. Michael Witt is averaging an 81.94 per cent success rate with his goalkicking - superior to all bar Wests Tigers fullback Brett Hodgson among those who took more than 40 shots this season.
You don't get numbers like that without a perfect sense of timing.
And how come Wiki, who is now on his fourth potential NRL farewell, is playing like a man 10 years younger?
Steve Price - the Warriors best signing bar none - unfailingly makes his metres, Sam Rapira provides fire off the bench, and you get nowhere without your diligent workers like Micheal Luck and Simon Mannering, men whose work is best appreciated by their teammates.
Throw in the little men, Ian Henderson, Nathan Fien and Lance Hohaia, buzzing about with purpose and verve, and the package has come together.
It's all about spirit, the sort of spirit which produced the inspired defensive effort in the first half against the Roosters when all the good of the previous week in Melbourne could have easily been undone.
Talent gets a team, or individual, so far. Throw in a generous helping of passion, the desire to stand together and achieve something special by dint of blending the sum of their parts, and you move to an altogether different plane.
And that's what Ivan Cleary and his coaching staff have managed to do in these last few weeks. Merge the talent with heart, get the timing right and you're in business. Simple really.
