Mannering tips Warriors to bounce back
Warriors lock Simon Mannering remains confident history won’t be repeating itself, despite the 26-22 loss to the Raiders in Canberra on Saturday night.
Last year with eight rounds to go, the Warriors were in the top eight of the NRL, then lost all of their remaining games.
This year they were also in the top eight at that point and they’ve just lost their last two fixtures, to the Sea Eagles and Raiders.
So is this the start of another downward spiral? Mannering doesn’t think so and says the team still believes they can get something out of this season.
‘‘We’ve still got faith in our system and what we’re doing is working,’’ the former Warriors captain said.
‘‘It’s just a matter of applying that for longer parts of the game.
‘‘Last week it was our start that was very poor, then we played good footy after that. This week it was the second half where they scored a couple of quick tries.
‘‘There’s disappointment right now and we’ll be kicking stones about it for a couple of days but as soon as we get back into training we’ll be thinking about what we can do better and preparing for the next game.’’
The defeats to the Sea Eagles and Raiders both came in golden point time, as did the loss to the Sharks a couple of weeks before.
In the Sharks and Sea Eagles games, the Warriors were tactically poor in how they played sudden death footy. That criticism can’t be levelled at them after the Raiders loss as Jarrod Croker scored a try from the first set of six.
The Warriors’ problems were instead caused by not stopping Joseph Leilua’s big run, which led to Croker’s try.
That try took the gloss off a superb comeback from the Warriors, who were down 22-4 with 10 minutes to go, but sneaked back into it with two tries from Thomas Leuluai, one from David Fusitu’a and a sideline conversion from Issac Luke in the 80th minute.
‘‘It’s two in a row and we probably didn’t play our smartest or best game of footy,’’ Mannering said. ‘‘But we gave ourselves a chance by competing right to the end and Bully [Luke] kicked a goal from the side to give us a chance.
‘‘But we just didn’t respond, from the first set in golden point they marched down the field and scored. It’s very disappointing.’’
What could have been a factor in the game was the awful travel schedule the Warriors have had recently with a trip to Perth and back, then to Canberra via Sydney, all done in just over a week.
‘‘We’ll never use it as an excuse,’’ Mannering said.
‘‘I know it’s not ideal but we do a lot of travelling and are probably more used to it than other teams,’’ he said.