Warriors’ hopes hang by a thread
The Warriors haven’t reached the point where they’re just playing for pride, but that has to be a factor.
With their chances of finishing in the top eight slipping away, all the Warriors can do is try to finish off the year on a good note and possibly save coach Andrew Mcfadden’s job.
The 34-6 loss to the Cowboys in an NRL match in Townsville on Saturday night means for the Warriors to make the top eight they need to beat the Tigers and Eels in their last two games and hope the Titans, resurgent with the signing of superstar Jarryd Hayne, are beaten by the Panthers and Cowboys.
Given the form of the Panthers and Cowboys, the Titans’ part of the scenario is possible, but the Warriors need to quickly find form.
‘‘We’ve had two games we’re really disappointed with, but we can’t let that bring us down,’’ said Warriors winger Manu Vatuvei, also referring to the 41-22 defeat to the Rabbitohs the previous week.
‘‘We’d been playing really well for most of the past two months. We have to pick our energy up and it’s up to us leaders to get us back up.
‘‘We’ve got to deal with it, review it and focus on next week.’’
What was particularly disappointing in the Cowboys’ loss, was that it was a return to the bad old ways for the team, with numerous handling errors inside their own half, that were capitalised on by the opposition.
‘‘We made it hard for ourselves with the errors,’’ admitted Vatuvei. ’’I made one in the first half when it wasn’t needed, but we had to keep going and keep turning up for each other.
‘‘Our defence wasn’t that great and it’s something we’re going to have to fix. We’ve got two games left and we have to win both of them.’’
The statistics from Saturday’s loss give a real reflection of just how disappointing they were in this game.
The Warriors completed just 17 sets (57 per cent), compared to 33 from the Cowboys, missed 28 tackles, had to make six goal line drop outs, with the Cowboys not making any and made 13 errors from their 40 per cent of possession.
‘‘It comes down to individuals,’’ Vatuvei said of the errors.
‘‘I’ll put my hand up, I made an error and most of the other boys did too.
‘‘It’s not a team thing, it comes down to individuals and we need to work on ball security.
‘‘We know if we fix it we can do something really good, because when we held on to the ball we were looking dangerous,’’ said Vatuvei.