Late kick consigns Warriors to defeat
The Warriors have fallen to a Daly Cherry-evans golden point field goal to lose 22-21 to the Manly Sea Eagles.
There was just 48 seconds left on the clock in extra time when the Sea Eagles halfback slotted over the winning kick and consigned the Warriors to their eighth straight loss, even though they were up by seven points with five minutes to go in the second half.
It was yet another Warriors home game played in the rain and that, added to the team’s abysmal form, meant there were only the 9167 diehards who came out for this.
While the Warriors had nothing left to play for, the Sea Eagles’ season was on the line.
Tom Trbojevic went close to scoring for the Sea Eagles in the 10th minute but lost possession of the ball as he stretched out to ground it.
However, three minutes later the Sea Eagles did get the opening try, benefiting from a 40/20 by Blake Green.
From the following set, Jake Trbojevic took an inside pass close to the Warriors line and came through with enough pace to beat the defence.
In the 23rd minute the Sea Eagles’ Matt Wright kicked a penalty to take the score to 8-0.
Four minutes later though, with Warriors fans doubting wondering why they’d bothered to brave the weather for this, David Fusitu’a finished off a nice backline move to score in the right corner.
Eight minutes before the break
Fusitu’a got his second try, winning a foot race to ground the ball beyond the Sea Eagles’ tryline.
Nine minutes into the half Blake Ayshford scored for the Warriors, but it was Fusitu’a who did the hard work, catching a bomb from Shaun Johnson and then quickly passing to the centre while still in the air.
The Sea Eagles were the most dominant team for the next 20 minutes, but the Warriors defence held firm and with 10 minutes to go, the Warriors hit the front when Ken Maumalo capitalised on an overlap on the left edge to score.
Johnson landed a field goal with seven minutes to go to force the Sea Eagles to score twice.
One came from a Tom Trbojevic try three minutes later and a subsequent Matt Wright conversion, then Cherry-evans got the field goal and the game was squared up at 21-21.
There were no further scores, so the game went to golden point.
With 48 seconds to go and the Sea Eagles having worked their way 20m out from the Warriors’ line, Cherry-evans bagged his second field goal, to keep his team’s hopes alive and pile further misery on the Warriors.