League: Warriors' season starts here after win

Warriors 46 Rabbitohs 14

Frustration has summed up the Warriors season to date but they blew off some steam last night in an emphatic win over a dreadful Souths outfit.

Ivan Cleary's side let slip what should've been a winning lead against the Raiders last weekend and two of their other three losses were by eight points or less to leave everyone at the club annoyed. And that's without taking the four-point deduction for the breach of the salary cap into account.

They simply needed to win against a side seen as the leading candidates for the wooden spoon - not only for their top-eight hopes but also to start winning back fans who stayed away in their droves again. Only 8015 turned up to Ericsson, which even seemed generous. Crowds under 10,000 will be doing nothing for the Warriors' balance sheet.

While the Warriors played well in patches last night, particularly in the first half, the Rabbitohs were dreadful. They dropped the ball, kicked out on the full, lacked direction and ideas, dropped off tackles and were slow to move up on defence, which allowed the Warriors to grab easy metres. The home side needed no second invitation and led 26-4 at the break. Game over. Or so you would have thought.

They fell back into some of their bad habits early in the second half and seemingly found even more creative ways to let a game slip from their grasp. The Rabbitohs narrowed the gap to 28-14 with 25 minutes to play and, as frustration once again surfaced, it took the fastidious refereeing of Jason Robinson, who found fault with the slightest infringement, to fire the home side up.

When George Gatis burrowed under the Souths defence to score in the 66th minute, Warriors fans started to breathe a little easier. They saw the Warriors win for the first time in Auckland this year and it was their 10th in a row against the hapless Bunnies.

It had started so well as the Warriors looked like they would rack up a cricket score - and no one was better than prop Ruben Wiki. The Kiwis skipper has had a slow start to the season by his standards but he burst into life, scoring two tries and pulling off a try-saving tackle, all inside the first 20 minutes.


His first scoring act was in the fifth minute when he burst over from 10m out. Just 12 minutes later he imitated a bulldozer as he ploughed through two Souths tacklers and then ran over the top of fullback Todd Polglase to dot down under the post.

Tony Martin and Brent Webb continued the procession as they both ran in from halfway, before the Bunnies got off the mark with a try to Ben Rogers in the corner.

As the Warriors slipped into a slumber and lacked conviction on defence, Paul Mellor collected a perfectly weighted Ben Walker grubber kick in the 57th minute and John Sutton burrowed over six minutes later to close the gap to 28-14.

But that was as close as Souths managed to get, as first Gatis and then Steve Price muscled over the tryline and Todd Byrne also scampered in to finish the game in the same fashion as the Warriors had started it.

Although it was against the NRL's worst side, it was an important win and the Warriors must now put together a winning run to propel themselves up the ladder to give them any chance of making the top eight. Otherwise, it will end up as just another frustrating season.

Warriors 46 (R. Wiki 2, T. Martin, B. Webb, G. Gatis, S. Price, T. Byrne tries; T. Martin 9 gls)
Rabbitohs 14 (B. Rogers, P. Mellor, J. Sutton tries; N. Merritt gl).
HT: 26-4.

* Uncertainty surrounded Richard Villasanti last night, as it was disputed that he had ruled himself out of the Warriors game against Souths - only to play for the Canterbury Bulls in the curtain-raiser.

The club issued a press release on Thursday to say the 25-year-old former Kangaroos prop had ruled himself out of the match but he refuted that last night.

"I didn't pull myself out," an indignant Villasanti declared. "You read into that what you want."

Warriors chief executive Wayne Scurrah was intrigued by Villasanti's response but said: "There is no dispute with the club."

Villasanti has struggled with injuries for some time and is well down the pecking order at the Warriors with Steve Price, Ruben Wiki, Evarn Tuimavave, Sam Rapira and Ephalame Lauaki (before he got injured) ahead of the one-test prop.

He was also told he could look for another club when the salary cap saga emerged but Villasanti decided to stay and many have questioned his attitude.