This is definitely the 3rd best year I have had as a Warriors fan.
The most special year was 2001, some where out there in VHS and Beta land there is a tape of the Warriors players talking about their first ever finals appearance in the lead up to that game, SKY TV NZ put together a special montage -
Motu Tony is talking, the music is epic, and you can see how these nobodies who were almost headed down a route of being kicked from the comp finally made it.
I wish I could find that video it gave me a lump in the throat and teary eyes, it was the best piece of league footage that SKY has ever produced. Motu is an unknown kid and the way his voice is on the verge of breaking, talking about a mans dream is just pure Coach Carter best scenes shit.
We got fifty points put on us by the Eels a week later and that was the bitter sweet end to a great underdog tale, and the rebirth of the 95ers hopes and dreams.
A year later as everyone knows, those same nobodies were playing in a GF as the minor prems, that is the second most special year I have had.
Skip forward to this week, here we are floating on a cloud, after being hurt bad by the loss of SJ and a hiding from the Panthers.
The Parallels with the 2001 side are spooky, new coach, bit of a nobody, fairly average looking Roster on paper
(let me justify that comment) the forward pack looked good but well short of a couple of serious props to compete, and the back line looked horrible.
At the start of this year we had an out of form ageing number 7, two dud Centers, two borderline Wingers, and a tradesman non ball playing fullback, with a utility playing at stand off.
Not the stuff you would dream could make it to this week.
What Webster has done to these players is incredible, they are all able to do things that they have not had the skill set to do in their careers, Stacey, Morgan, Agars have taught them through the steep learning curve how to catch up with their counter parts in the NRL.
Only three coaches in twenty seven years have been able to teach the players new skills. That there is your answer to why this club has never succeeded long term, because the NZ player comes with a lot of skill deficits that other clubs don't have to worry about (look at the new look NSW cup side and their set ups, they are being trained in block shapes), NZ player need Rugby League education, not just training drills and pep talks.
Our difficulty signing the best in the comp means we have to buy people that frankly have something missing in their game.
BTW the three coaches that actually came here and taught Rugby league are
Daniel Anderson,
Andrew McFadden and
Andrew Webster. That is why we struck gold getting the two Andrews back here.
So I feel good, real good, and not because we are winning and all that jazz, I feel good because I can see a foundation for permanent change..
I see the Warriors going with a new small bench that puts them ahead of the curve where this club has always been five to ten years behind the evolution of the game..
Take these examples of NRL quantum leaps in the game and consider it took us more than ten years to adopt any of them:
A) Line speed (introduced in 2002 by the Sydney Rooster adopted by the Warriors 2015, thirteen years and five coaches later)
B) Block shapes and slingshot plays (began appearing around fifteen years ago to counter the Storms wrestle, again not taught at the Warriors till
Andrew McFadden)
C) Wrestling (invented by the Storm early two thousands, picked up on by various Warriors coaches, though never mastered by the club, a work in progress boosted this year by an MMA champion).
One of our biggest problems is when a coach makes some ground with the knowledge vacuum, the team still sucks, and the coach gets fired, the good stuff is lost and forgotten (like how our line speed and block shapes disappeared after Cappy was sacked, our low errors after SK was sacked etc).
In a perfect world those assistant coaches who we forced to become NRL coaches, get to stay on at the club and keep instilling the things that worked.,
Well we got two assistants back at the club, one being a former Warriors head coach, a first for this organization and a sign they are maturing.
As if by magic coach Webster unlocks SJ, and other players follow, the confidence grows from this crucial relationship between the coach and the lead play maker.
Mid year the coaches flick the go switch and all these fancy attacking moves ala Cappy style. We turn into a completely different side and everyone starts to think we could do better than 6th place (remember when every fan in here was doing the ladder predictor and they all came back with a 6th place finish at best?).
We went flat for a period, but kept punching and BOOM NRL top four baby locked and loaded.
We just thrashed a good side in a final and get the best possible finals opponent you could dream of in a Warriors Semi....Warrior V the 95 enemy number one.
As much as I am on a cloud, floating this week, my head is also saying that we cannot lose from here, not because we could beat the Broncos, my head is telling me we have the right people, to finally fix, the biggest problem in New Zealand sport - effecting permanent and lasting changes at the Warriors.
This is not a summer or a spring, or one swallow, nor is it a false dawn, this is a well thought out building sea change.
The small bench forwards are the key, they are our way of being first, the first club to even try it so extremely, and that should tell you everything you need to know about where we are going, whether you like that move or not, and plenty struggle with it, take a step back, consider the big picture, what it really is the Warriors finally believe in themselves and are backing their way, not waiting ten years to copy someone else. ''
that’s why I’m on here so much haha 
(hopefully I can sort out flights and a grand final ticket to ride that luck all the way!!!)
