League: Rampant Warriors twist Tigers' tail

Awen Guttenbeil made big ground gains and was rewarded with a try in his 150th game, his 15th try in an 11-year career. Sandra Mu / Getty Images

The Warriors played smart and confident football at Jade Stadium for their first win in 11 games outside Auckland, with coach Ivan Cleary's change at hooker paying off.

George Gatis set the team on a great roll in his first NRL game since 2003, with big props Steve Price and Ruben Wiki dominating.

Awen Guttenbeil also made big ground gains and was rewarded with a try in his 150th game, his 15th try in an 11-year career.

Good service from Gatis established a better roll-on and his runs from dummy-half were telling, as were his switches from left-to-right attack.

The Warriors enjoyed a significant territorial advantage and a glut of possession early on, thanks to the pressure they put on the Tigers' little men, Isaac de Gois at hooker and Ben Reynolds and Scott Prince in the halves, who all made mistakes.

Up 14-0 at the break, and with the Tigers having made 176 tackles to the Warriors' 112, the game was all but won.

"It beats losing, that's for sure," Cleary said yesterday.

Their performance improved in several key areas and the back-to-basics approach with specialist hooker Gatis in the delivery role played no small part, Cleary said.

Brent Webb and Manu Vatuvei bounced back after troubled periods against the Eels and made good impact from the bench.

The Warriors muffed some early scoring opportunities, but not so badly as to lose position and possession.

They were camped in Tigers territory for most of the first 15 minutes until Jerome Ropati's support play bagged the first try after Tony Martin off-loaded in the tackle.

At 24 minutes Gatis made 20m out of dummy-half and passed inside to Webb. After more pressure in the Tigers' red zone Clinton Toopi got over to make it 14-0. The Kiwi centre played his best game since last year's Tri Nations.

There were some lapses. Wairangi Koopu played the ball with no one there and the Tigers gratefully accepted it. And Vatuvei made a break, but passed the ball to the opposition, possibly in response to a call that sounded as if it came from a team mate.

In the brief period they dominated, the Tigers put wing Michael Crockett over, making it 14-6.

But then Toopi turned on a blinding solo effort, breaking the line and drawing all defenders, Vatuvei running inside to finish.

Nathan Fien's kicking game was much better, the backline ran more smoothly and players, including Toopi and Vatuvei, were more confident.

The Warriors have Sione Faumuina back from suspension for next week's first real away game against high-scoring Newcastle, which will provide a serious test for the level of their improvement.

Cleary said he would review the game before deciding whether to inject Faumuina back at five-eighth.

"It's nice to have the option. There's no harder game at the moment than going up there [to Newcastle].

"We'll have to work hard this week, we will need our 'A' game up there."