It may only have been an ‘exhibition’ game with nothing but pride at stake, but pride should always be something worth fighting for and a massive prize.

Saturday's clash with Brisbane Broncos turned out to be the best 80-minute performance from The Wire for a few years.

They got off to a flying start courtesy of benefitting from one of their trademark charge downs, unlike in the past when they have often been punished for them in big games.

Joe Westerman raced away for 60 metres or so then importantly kept his composure to take the tackle close to the line, allowing Kevin Brown to use his vision to go over from acting half back on the next play and make a dream start to his debut with a try inside two minutes.

One ability that the team seemed to lack last season was that of being able to sense the important moments in a match and understand the flow of the game.

This led to them not taking full advantage when they were on top and conceding too many points when the opposition were in the ascendency.

You never know when dominant spells are going to end, so you have to make the most of yours and make the best of theirs.

Don’t settle for 10 points when you’re on top, look for 20 or 30, and when you’re under the cosh then tough it out to limit the damage to one try rather than two or three.

This game turned into the perfect example of that.

Instead of settling for the one quick try from their fast start The Wire were not intimidated by their opponents' reputation and nationality, they turned one early score into a 20-0 lead inside the first 20 minutes.

Brisbane did get a foothold in the match, as they were always likely to do, particularly in the second half.

Importantly The Wire never allowed them to score two tries in quick succession and still had periods of applying pressure themselves, which stopped Brisbane from building too much momentum, as well as resulting in three more points from the boot of Dec Patton to keep the lead big enough for serious panic to never set in.

Once the two little outbreaks of ‘bringing back the biff’ occurred I felt more confident that a composed and assured comeback from the Aussies was unlikely.

Their frustration probably came not just from the score board but also because of the sheer physicality of The Wire’s performance, with an immense defensive performance, especially down the middle.

Brown obviously had a great debut, in particular his kicking game, vision and ability to create tries near the opponents' line should be a great addition to last year’s team.

Not surprisingly Kurt Gidley looked more than comfortable at full back, a lot of his most important work would be hard to notice in terms of organisation of the defence and to a lesser extent the attack.

Andre Savelio looks like a brilliant acquisition, to an already impressive array of back rowers.

Hopefully soon enough Tony Smith will have the problem that every coach wants, that of having too many top quality players to choose from.

They’ve set the bar extremely high already, if they can keep pushing it up, even just a little, then I don’t think there’ll be any Super League team that can match that height.