Kearney proud of Warriors' response with battered pride on the line

Stephen Kearney and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck have hailed the Warriors' resilience and pride in their performance after a dominant 26-6 win over the Brisbane Broncos at Suncorp Stadium.

The Warriors were coming off two consecutive losses, including a dire display against Penrith nine days previously which put their finals hopes in jeopardy leading into the business end of the season.

Warriors fans have seen the side capitulate at the closing rounds in recent years but the display against the Broncos suggested the wheels won’t be falling off the 2018 team.

"I was very proud of them. It was a challenging week. Not that we were listening to much of it, but there was a lot of noise out there about this time of the year for the club in the past being a real challenge," Kearney said.

"Off the back of the performance last Friday it was important that we responded and I thought the guys did a wonderful job during the week of owning that and working on what we needed to.

"There was no sitting around and sulking."

Warriors captain Roger Tuivasa-Sheck said the response to the Penrith loss was what impressed him the most. The fullback was on song in partnership with Shaun Johnson, Blake Green and Issac Luke.

"We came here with a lot of energy and confidence to just play our game," he said

"From the start of [2018] we wanted to show that we were here to play and each week just focus on us. We were disappointed from last week but this week we just wanted to show that we can play. It was all about keeping it in-house, pleasing each other and making sure we had a proud performance before looking outside.

"Everyone plays their role to change habits or change culture. We are trying to create an environment for everyone to enjoy and if we are doing something special to keep doing it and let the noise be noise."

While pleased with the work of the spine Tuivasa-Sheck said: “I’ve got to give a rap to our middles because when they are going forward our spine comes alive."

The pack was led brilliantly by prop Agnatius Paasi, who ran for 161m, made three line breaks and scored a rampaging try.

Veteran Simon Mannering also ran for 148m and made 41 tackles in a performance that kept the engine room firing on all cylinders.

"Over the last month [Paasi] has probably been the pick of the forwards and had a wonderful game against the Sharks," Kearney said.

"He was great again today and has been very consistent for us. When he came on for his second spell I thought he really made a difference. It is a tough one for Simon because he is normally an eight and a half out of 10, so when he throws in a nine there is not a big difference between his best and his worst performance."

Another positive sign for the Warriors was the left edge attack where centre Solomone Kata had a field day on his way to two tries. The club's leading try scorer this season, David Fusitu’a, has been outstanding on the right wing scoring 15 tries this year but this time it was Kata’s time to shine.

"We had a fair bit of joy down our right side earlier on in the season so we have worked pretty hard on our left edge attack over the last month," Kearney said.