Coach Trent Robinson is hailing the Sydney Roosters' fighting qualities after a come-from-behind 25-21 NRL victory over the Warriors in Auckland.
In his first outing in 10 weeks due to injury, returning centre Blake Ferguson scored in the final minute of the Saturday night match to snatch an unlikely win.
The tricolours trailed for most of the game before five-eighth James Maloney tied the scores with eight minutes remaining.
The former Warrior jinked through some tired defence to touch down beside the posts and then landed the conversion.
He then kicked a field goal to edge his side ahead, before Shaun Johnson replied for the Warriors with three minutes to go.
Maloney shaped for another field goal before shifting the ball wide and Ferguson dived over in the corner to win the game, a result that had seemed unlikely at halftime when the Roosters had had hardly any ball.
"It's a really good performance in the context of our season," Robinson said.
"We're not top four at the moment but they showed a fighting spirit - a really tough honest team that worked hard for each other."
Robinson said Maloney, who spent three seasons with the Warriors, had quipped earlier in the day that he was "the prince of Auckland or something like that".
"He loved his time here, he really valued it and he really likes coming back here," he said.
"He played his game tonight, then he stepped up to win it for us."
The match featured an NRL record for Warriors winger Manu Vatuvei, who scored five minutes from halftime to notch up his 10th four-pointer of the year, making him the first player to score 10 or more tries in 10 successive seasons.
Despite the defeat, coach Andrew McFadden was pleased with the effort of his young side, saying it was totally different from what they produced in their 36-4 last-start loss to South Sydney in Perth.
"There was a lot more to like about tonight than there was last week," he said.
"It was completely chalk and cheese if you ask me.
"We will got a lot of learning out of that when we look at the tape but I think we're certainly on the right track."
The Warriors dominated early, getting regular repeat sets in the opening quarter, but the Roosters lived up to their status as one of the competition's best defensive outfits.
The Warriors finally found a way through 12 minutes from halftime and went on to dot down three times in seven minutes through Solomone Kata, Tuimoala Lolohea and Vatuvei.
They then conceded soft try just before the break to winger Shaun Kenny-Dowall after turning over the ball in their own half.
Kata's second try early in the second spell - the 11th of his debut season - opened the gap back out but the Roosters big finish began when centre Brendan Elliot plucked a bomb to score.
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