New Zealand Warriors playmaker Blake Green says his team is building momentum based on their defensive efforts – not their attack.

The Warriors play Cronulla tonight in Auckland.

“Obviously it was great to get the result to break the win-loss thing that we’d been going through,” Green told stuff.co.nz.

“But the way we did it, we only had 40 per cent of the footy and I think the Cowboys spent 30 minutes of the second half in our half. We defended really well, we showed a lot of resilience and a lot of fight which was really pleasing. 

“We’ve obviously had some periods this year where we’ve leaked a few points. We had every reason to let that happen again up in Townsville under pressure but we dug in and defended really well.”