Warringah’s 2016 finals hopes are well and truly alive after an impressive 43-17 bonus point win over rivals Manly on Saturday and hooker Luke Holmes still thinks his side has plenty to achieve this season.

With two rounds remaining, the Rats are fifth on the Intrust Shute Shield ladder but will still most likely need to win their final two matches to book a spot in the finals.

“It’s a bit of a different feeling this year, big wins against good teams in the past few years have been really big moments whereas this year I think the boys are more focussed on putting everything together to make the finals,” Holmes told Rugby News.

“We celebrated after the game and enjoyed the moment, but the focus on Sunday turned straight to Eastern Suburbs. The messages floating around from the senior players and the staff were all about refocussing quickly and getting ready to play Easts because they are going to be tough.”

After an inconsistent start to the season, Warringah has lost just one of its last seven matches, a run which included draws against Eastwood and Sydney Uni, and have looked a much improved side since the return of halfback Josh Holmes and gun forward Sam Ward.

“We realised a couple of weeks ago that we needed to win every game to make it into the finals, so we put ourselves under some pressure and the boys have really responded in the last few weeks,” Holmes said.

“We were quite filthy with ourselves when we gave up a big lead against Sydney Uni. Sure, a few decisions didn’t go our way, but we put ourselves in that predicament. The focus this week was to make sure we put Manly away if we got ahead and we did that.”

After earning a penalty try from an attacking scrum to open the scoring, Warringah turned defence into attack twice in the first half and scored two long range tries off the back of Manly mistakes.

While the Marlins fought back early in the second half, Warringah were two strong and scored twice after the break to secure a bonus point win.

Despite scoring five tries, Holmes said he thought it was his side’s defence that won the match.

“One of the big things we’ve worked on this year has been our defence and we’ve worked quite hard on it since the start of the year. We want to get excited and be enthusiastic in defence but we also want to show patience,” the hooker said.

“Throughout the year, I think we’ve defended as individuals a lot of the time, whereas now we are working as a team and over the last five weeks I think it has started to slowly come together.”

With star flyhalf Hamish Angus ruled out of the clash, Rodney Iona shifted to No.10 and played well enough to keep former Wallaby Julian Huxley on the bench for the entire match.

“Rod is a fantastic player and he has played a bit of a different role for us this year compared to how he usually plays as a No.12. He got an opportunity at flyhalf with Ham (Hamish Angus) away and Rod did a fantastic job,” Holmes said.

“Even though Hux (Huxley) didn’t get on, it was great to have that cool head on the bench. We knew that if we needed him, we could bring him on and he would do a great job.”

Warringah take arguably the most experienced squad of any side into the final two rounds of the season and will need to beat both Eastern Suburbs and Randwick to secure a spot in the top six.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that have played quite a bit of first grade football so they know how to deal with tight situations so I think that will help” Holmes said.

“Easts are going to be hard to beat, their season is on the line as well, they’re in the same situation as us so we’ll need to be ready.”

It’s understood flyhalf Rodney Iona will push back his move overseas and play out the season with Warringah, with Hamish Angus also expected to return to the in-form Rats side in the coming weeks.

Warringah will need to win four straight matches to book a spot in the grand final and while the odds may be against them, Holmes said his side certainly hasn’t given up hope.

“We’re definitely confident in our ability. I was so proud to be apart of that team on the weekend and we know what we can do but Easts are a very good team and Randwick are going fantastic. We’ll give it a good crack and work really hard over the next two weeks to try and beat those two teams.

“If we’re there on August 5 (grand final day), I’ll be a bloody happy man, I can tell you that.”