KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand Warriors will field an unchanged side for the fourth National Rugby League match in a row when they face South Sydney on Saturday night.
The Warriors, buoyed by their win over premiers Melbourne last weekend, will be chasing their fifth successive victory when they head to Sydney's ANZ Stadium.
The 8-6 result over the Storm in Auckland balanced their season's ledger at nine wins and nine losses and took them to within points differential of a place in the top eight.
The Warriors also haven't forgotten their last meeting with South Sydney early last month.
The Rabbitohs had arrived at Mt Smart Stadium bottom of the table, but overcame a 16-0 deficit to sting the Warriors 35-28.
"It was really disappointing the way we lost that game," coach Ivan Cleary said.
"We've made a lot of progress since that night and we needed to, but the Rabbitohs are still a side that can expose you. We saw that in the way they played in the weeks after beating us."
Cleary said defeating Melbourne had given his players a boost, but they had to back that up this weekend.
The win over the Storm was built on a strong defensive effort, with just 13 missed tackles compared with the opposition's 32.
Loose forward Micheal Luck and hooker Ian Henderson made 56 tackles each, while second rower Simon Mannering (39), and props Ruben Wiki (33) and Steve Price (31) all topped 30.
Mannering and Wiki had no missed or ineffective tackles.
Luck, who is about to play his 69th game in a row, has moved ahead of Gold Coast's Nathan Friend as the NRL's top tackler, with 730 in 18 games for an average of 40.6 a match.
Last year, he headed the season's tackle statistics with 959.
Sonny Fai has scored a try in each of the four games he has played since starting in the centres.
Fullback Lance Hohaia, by kicking two penalties against the Storm, reached 250 points in his first-grade career.
New Zealand Warriors: Lance Hohaia, Malo Solomona, Brent Tate, Sonny Fai, Aidan Kirk, Nathan Fien, Grant Rovelli, Ruben Wiki, Ian Henderson, Steve Price (captain), Simon Mannering, Logan Swann, Micheal Luck.
Interchange: Jerome Ropati, Evarn Tuimavave, Sam Rapira, Ben Matulino.
- NZPA
