Warriors 30 Sharks 16
Manu Vatuvei is known as The Beast but he could afford to drop one of those letters and simply be known as The Best at the moment.
The 112kg winger grabbed a hat-trick of tries last night to go with the brace he scored last weekend to help the Warriors to their first win of the 2010 season.
He is a special player and his record attests to that. Last night he took his try-scoring tally to 63 in just 96 matches. Even more impressively, he has now scored 34 tries in his last 38 NRL matches to establish himself as one of the game's most lethal finishers.
He's now moved ahead of Francis Meli (60 in 110 games) in the Warriors' all-time list and it must surely be a matter of time before he eclipses Stacey Jones (77 in 261 games) as the club's most prolific try-scorer.
It's hard to believe Vatuvei has just turned 24 and is now in his seventh season in the NRL.
He's had his issues, most notably with his hands in 2007, and is also prone to drifting too far infield on defence, but he has established himself as the Warriors' talisman and attracts the biggest roar from the Mt Smart faithful every time he touches the ball.
There were a number of good performers for the Warriors last night - Lance Hohaia was excellent and popped up throughout the night at fullback, dummy half and then five-eighth; James Maloney was tidy in the absence of the injured Brett Seymour; and Sam Rapira had a strong game up the middle of the park.
But Vatuvei was the star of the show.
He is on top of his game and, despite the fact opposition teams know it, they still struggle to stop him. Already he has five tries this season to sit on top of the try-scoring charts.
More importantly, though, it helped the Warriors to their first win of the season. It's still only round two, but with games against the Broncos (A), Manly (H), Bulldogs (A), a much improved Panthers (H) and Storm (A) to follow, it was important for them to get themselves under way. They have shown in the past three seasons how hard it is to play catch-up.
It helped that they were up against a Sharks side who have forgotten how to win. It's been almost nine months since they sung their victory song and last night they extended their run of defeats to a club record 12 matches.
They went close to snapping it last weekend against the defending champions Melbourne Storm, eventually going down 14-10, and they had their chances last night despite trailing 16-0 in as many minutes.
They recovered to draw level 16-16 early in the second half before succumbing to Vatuvei.
Early on they were handing it on a plate to the home side with a series of dreadful handling errors early in the tackle count along with a host of missed tackles (they missed 44 in the match to the Warriors' 17).
Hooker Aaron Heremaia took advantage of some sleepy defence when he skirted in from dummy half, Vatuvei finished off a brilliant 90m break started by Kevin Locke close to his own line and involving five sets of hands and then Simon Mannering started his tenure as new Warriors skipper in fine style when he dived on a clever Lance Hohaia stab kick close to the line.
At that stage, it looked a case of 'by how many' rather than 'if' the Warriors would win.
But the Sharks are made of sterner stuff than that - "rabid dogs" was how Warriors coach Ivan Cleary affectionately described them as before the match - and they got themselves back into it with tries to Luke Covell and Blake Ferguson.
The Warriors managed to gain control early in the second half, thanks largely to Vatuvei.
The big winger finished off slick a move down the left in the 48th minute after Maloney had gone close and then followed that up with another in the 55th minute after a clever stutter and acceleration.
Rapira grabbed the last of the night to make the game safe in Micheal Luck's 100th match for the Warriors.
There is still plenty for Cleary's side to improve on - it is the Sharks, after all - but winning breeds confidence and the Warriors have a lot to thank Vatuvei for.
Warriors 30 (M. Vatuvei 3, A. Heremaia, S. Mannering, S. Rapira tries, K. Locke 2 gls, Heremaia gl) Sharks 16 (L. Covell, B. Ferguson tries, S. Porter 3 gls). HT: 16-14.
