Mannering determined to stop Warriors’ rot

In the 22-year history of the Warriors, there’s never been a player who’s been through more tough times than Simon Mannering but he keeps coming back for more.

The 30-year-old who missed the losses against the Panthers and Dragons over the past couple of rounds because of a hamstring injury, will take to the field again tonight when the Warriors host the Broncos.

He admits he’s found it tough watching the team struggle over the past couple of weeks, feeling helpless that he couldn’t help out.

‘‘I haven’t watched many from the sidelines,’’ said Mannering, who’ll be playing his 268th game for the club this weekend.

‘‘But it’s a lot harder watching than playing and I get much more nervous.

‘‘It’s because I don’t have any control over what happens and when things don’t go well, you feel for the guys because you couldn’t help them,’’ he said.

Mannering has been involved in playoff footy in only four of the 12 years he’s been at the club and he could be forgiven for wishing he played for a more successful team,.

However, he’s never given much serious consideration to leaving each time his contract has come up for renewal and he remains optimistic about what the team can achieve this year, despite their slow start.

‘‘You definitely learn a lot more from the hard times than the good times,’’ he said.

‘‘Obviously, during my career it would have been nice to had a lot less of those hard times.

‘‘But I’m always optimistic and positive about where you can go to from these points, because us players, we’re the ones who’ve got control over it, so it’s only us who can get ourselves out of it.

‘‘There’s no point in us looking externally, we’ve got to find it within ourselves to turn things around.’’

The Warriors have shown in patches this year that they can play well, as demonstrated in their win over the Roosters. But that makes this current bad patch all the more frustrating for their supporters.

‘‘Even the games we’ve lost against quality opposition, we still played decent footy,’’ Mannering said.

‘‘That’s the most disappointing thing. We felt we were building really well, getting some consistent football and the results were going to come. But then we took steps backwards against Penrith and St George.

‘‘But that’s not to say that we can’t get back to where we were.’’

Meanwhile, Tuimoala Lolohea has officially left the Warriors and informed Wests Tigers that he will sign with them.

The 22-year-old, who fell out of favour with Stephen Kearney at the Warriors, had been seeking a release from the club for the past few weeks.

Lolohea was granted the release yesterday after the Warriors completed the signing of Zac Santo from the Raiders to be his replacement.