Discipline and patience haven't necessarily been two words associated with the Warriors during their history in the NRL.
But they proved the hallmark of arguably the club's greatest triumph since joining the big time in 1995, a 20-12 preliminary final win over Melbourne Storm at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
To put it simply, the Warriors beat the minor premiers at their own game to book a grand final berth against Manly this Sunday.
Having led 14-12 at the main break, the visitors kept the Storm scoreless in the second half and sealed a famous victory when young gun Shaun Johnson put Lewis Brown over for the sealing try on 77 minutes.
The success was surely the greatest coup of Ivan Cleary's six years in charge and the coach couldn't hide his delight post-match.
"It was great," Cleary beamed.
"I thought we controlled possession and field position in the second half, that's what you need to do against Melbourne and in the end it was enough to win the game."
"We had to be patient, the most pleasing thing about the second half is we were very patient, we never wavered from what we wanted to do."
Cleary's cool, calm demeanour has certainly had the desired effect on the Warriors, who bounced back from defeat against Brisbane in week one of the finals to defeat Wests Tigers and Melbourne.
He spoke of the impact the Broncos' defeat had on shaping his side's Cinderella-like charge to the decider.
"I said at the time I thought it (losing to Brisbane) was an aberration and the last two weeks have proved that," Cleary said.
"I think we all got ahead of ourselves and learnt a big lesson, it's really just galvanised us to make sure we got better and we have."
The Warriors' sizeable forward pack won the battle against their Storm counterparts with unlikely prop Jacob Lillyman, skipper Simon Mannering, impact front-rower Russell Packer and lock Micheal Luck at the forefront.
More importantly, they laid a platform for halves pairing Johnson and former Storm player James Maloney to shine.
Maloney came back to Victoria to haunt his old side with a haul of 12 points courtesy of a try and four conversions.
Fullback Kevin Locke was outstanding and giant winger Manu Vatuvei was another of the raft of fine contributors on show.
Cleary, who is off to Penrith after the grand final, expressed he had great belief in what the 2011 Warriors could achieve from the early stages of the season.
"I knew from the very first game even though we lost, we actually lost the first three this year, I knew from the first game we were a much better team this year," Cleary said.
"It just took a little while to get the confidence, combinations and our act together."
"It's all about producing when it really counts under pressure and that job's on again next week under the biggest lights possible."
Ironically, Cleary played at fullback in the Warriors' only previous grand final appearance, a 30-8 loss to Sydney Roosters in 2002, with interchange utility Lance Hohaia the only survivor of that team still playing at the club.