Warriors fans can now pin their hopes of the Wests Tigers defeating the Sydney Roosters on Sunday to keep their side top heading into the final rounds of the season, with a top-two finish vital for the club’s run to what would be a third NRL grand final appearance.
Barring a 20-minute spell midway through the second half that saw the Rabbitohs score three unanswered tries, the Warriors had the better of their opponents from the word go.
The Warriors celebrate Leka Halasima’s try against the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Photo / Photosport
Led by their forward pack – both starting and off the bench – the Warriors’ big men did the dirty work, and allowed Chanel Harris-Tavita to shine in his second game at halfback.
Wayde Egan ran the game exceptionally from dummy half, laying on his 13th and 14th try assists of the season, to go with 21 tackles. Co-captains James Fisher-Harris and Mitch Barnett remain arguably the game’s best front row, while the interchange pair of Eddie Ieremia-Toeava and Demetric Vaimauga continue to show the Warriors’ terrifying strength in depth.
Fullback Taine Tuaupiki meanwhile shone in deputising for the suspended Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, including a perfect eight from eight off the kicking tee to ensure every point available was taken.
The biggest concern of the night came through losing Dallin Watene-Zelezniak to what appeared to be a shoulder injury, even after the winger’s 79th try for the club to move second-equal with Shaun Johnson on the club’s all-time list.
The Warriors now return home to Go Media Stadium, where they’ll get to finish the regular season in front of their own fans against the Newcastle Knights and Manly Sea Eagles in the coming weeks, faced with the chance they might not have to leave Auckland again until a potential grand final.
While plenty of attention went onto the Warriors’ halves, the night’s opening try fittingly came from the forwards. After a shocking spell from Rabbitohs fullback Matt Dufty – who gave away a knock-on and set restart – Egan needed no second invitation to put co-captain Fisher-Harris through from close range.
Not to be outdone, Harris-Tavita began to assert himself at No 7, as a high kick saw Leka Halasima out-leap Campbell Graham to score, as the Warriors raced out to a 12-0 lead inside 10 minutes.
On a ground which they’d not lost on all season, though, South Sydney didn’t roll over in the same way the Broncos did last week. An aerial contest of their own – where Jack Wighton soared above Alofiana Khan-Pereira – gave the Rabbitohs their first points, only for errors to plague the hosts.
A Graham knock-on, offside penalty to Cameron Murray and set restart from Euan Aitken gave the Warriors field position, and saw Egan kick deftly through the line for co-captain Barnett to score as the lone chaser, before Tuaupiki’s boot pushed the lead to 18-4.
Against the most prolific try-scorer in rugby league history, the Warriors were always going to be vulnerable to Rabbitohs winger Alex Johnston, who pulled one back, before the Kiwi side hit back through one of the tries of the season.
Replacing the starting front rowers, the returning Vaimauga combined with Ieremia-Toeava to break the line from inside their own half, and race downfield before a perfect offload allowed Harris-Tavita to score unopposed.
And when Graham was penalised for an escort, Tuaupiki added another two for 26-8 halftime lead that wiped out the Penrith Panthers’ points differential at the top of the table.
The Warriors started the second half the same way they did the first, this time when Watene-Zelezniak went over with a trademark dive finish, as his final act of the night before succumbing to his injury.
But from 32-8 ahead, a triple-strike from the Rabbitohs kept the Warriors on their toes, as tries from Johnston, Tallis Duncan and Cody Walker pulled the score back to 32-26 with less than 20 minutes remaining.
James Fisher-Harris scores the Warriors’ first try against the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Photo / Photosport
With the gap reduced to a converted try, and the next try vital, Harris-Tavita was the architect of the Warriors’ sixth, by fielding his own bomb, before Ieremia-Toeava found Jacob Laban unmarked outside him to restore a 12-point advantage.
And needing to score more than a point a minute, the Rabbitohs’ slim chance of a fightback was ended in the dying moments, when Khan-Pereira added the seventh with a dive into the left corner, before Hanson’s last-second field goal gave Webster’s men top billing – for now.
Warriors 45 (Fisher-Harris, Halasima, Barnett, Harris-Tavita, Watene-Zelezniak, Laban, Khan-Pereira tries; Tuaupiki 7 conversions; Tuaupiki penalty; Hanson field goal)
Rabbitohs 26 (Wighton, Johnston 2, Duncan, Walker tries; Sullivan 3 conversions)
H/T: 26-8
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.