KEY POINTS:
Captain Steve Price knows his Warriors have one factor required to conjure one of the biggest NRL playoff boilovers in Melbourne on Sunday.
Whether that's enough against the dominant premiership favourites is another matter.
"The belief that we've got, and the attitude that the guys have taken into
every game," Price said at the annual captains' call at the Sydney Football Stadium yesterday.
"To win eight of our last 10 games against teams like Brisbane and Cronulla and Melbourne ... no one gave us a chance to make the top eight from where we were, 13th at the halfway mark. Real belief and attitude is the biggest thing."
It's a handy tonic as the Warriors discover the joys of finishing eighth, and a date with the defending champions who clinched their third consecutive minor premiership with a 42-4 hiding of South Sydney.
It shortened the Storm to $1.75 favouritism to win back-to-back titles, while the Warriors are $67 outsiders in an eight-team field, with defeat meaning the end of their season.
A few boxes have at least been ticked by the Warriors: an 8-6 victory over the Storm the last time the sides met in Auckland in July and a 24-20 win at Olympic Park in round 24 of 2006 when the hosts were cruising to the minor premiership.
Price said both wins had little relevance. The Storm were without key men Billy Slater and Brett White in Auckland, and both teams had largely different personnel in the 2006 clash. In addition, the Storm have since rattled off 10 in a row at home.
"There's an intimidation that goes with Melbourne in Melbourne and you've just got to take that out of it, which was what we did [in 2006]."
Away form cost the Warriors a higher position in 2008, winning just four of their 12 matches on the road - against Newcastle, Wests Tigers, the Bulldogs and Parramatta on Saturday night. All four missed the top eight.
Saturday's 28-6 win in the rain was one of the Warriors' most clinical of the year, with the defence somewhere near the minimum required to quell the Storm's gamebreakers.
"We're pretty embarrassed and disappointed about our record in Australia this year so we saw that as a big challenge," Price said.
"You can't afford to have one or two guys who aren't on their game, even more so this weekend. It was a big thing for us last week and we've got to replicate it."
Price clung to some history, a decade ago, to show how a lowly ranked team could potentially surprise.
"When I was at the Bulldogs in 1998 we came from seventh and made the grand final. I've been in a team that's done it ... but no team's done it from eighth before," he said with a grin.
- NZPA
