Warriors tune out at halftime
Tom Trbojevic ripped apart the Warriors in the Sea Eagles’ 38-32 win yesterday, scoring two tries and setting up four as the Warriors again failed to win backto-back NRL games this season.
At halftime the Warriors were up 20-12 and looking good for their fifth win of the year but then conceded 24 unanswered points.
This was another tale of two halves from the Warriors as they played quality football over the first 40 minutes but were woeful in the second half, making dumb errors that the Sea Eagles made them pay for.
With Chanel Harris-Tavita recovered from his foot injury, it was no surprise that he returned to the five-eighth position, with the Reece Walsh, 18, dropping to the interchange bench.
Walsh is clearly a gifted player, but Warriors coach Nathan Brown had mentioned numerous times over the past few weeks that he’ll be eased into life as a starting NRL player and for now that means beginning games on the bench.
Something else that wasn’t a surprise was that the Sea Eagles tested out the Warriors’ right edge defence.
Last weekend against the Cowboys, Edward Kosi, on debut, and Rocco Berry, in just his second game, struggled and they were an obvious target for Sea Eagles coach Des Hasler.
However, it was the Warriors who struck first with Kodi Nikorima spotting that HarrisTavita was lined up with a gap in the Sea Eagles’ defence in front of him. Once the pass went HarrisTavita’s way, it was an easy score for him.
But off the back of a 40-20 from Daly Cherry-Evans the Sea Eagles mounted an attack in the eighth minute and from that set Trbojevic rushed through some poor defending for a try.
Four minutes later Trbojevic had his second try, spinning out of one tackle and then racing through to the line.
In the 18th minute the Sea Eagles showed they can defend as casually as the Warriors as they allowed Tohu Harris to barge his way over from 10m out and once Nikorima kicked the conversion the scores were level at 12-12.
Six minutes before the break Nikorima goaled a penalty to put the Warriors in front and that lead was extended when Josh Curran grabbed his maiden NRL try.
In the 46th minute the Warriors botched a golden opportunity to score when they had a three on one overlap on the right edge. But Nikorima’s pass wasn’t caught by Berry and Kosi fumbled it around his feet.
It proved to be the turning point as the Sea Eagles immediately went down the other end and Morgan Harper scored.
Then in the 53rd minute the Sea Eagles capitalised on Curran spilling the ball, with Jason Saab dotting down in the corner and Reuben Garrick’s conversion put them in front 22-20.
The Warriors looked shell shocked and a few minutes later Garrick ran in for another try.
Saab then bagged two more tries, with the wheels having really come off this Warriors team.
Harris-Tavita managed to ground the ball over the line for a Warriors’ try in the 67th minute to stop the rot and Walsh went in with five minutes to go as the gap was closed to just six points.
They came desperately close to levelling the game in the final minute, but Ken Maumalo was pushed out by Saab when trying to ground the ball in the corner.