Warriors forced to dig deep for win
Ryan Hoffman scored the try to save the day for the Warriors in Auckland yesterday in the team’s 26-22 win over the Knights.
The ex-captain managed to ground the ball down with eight minutes left on the clock to put the Warriors back in front after a spirited Knights team came close to causing a massive upset.
Having come back from being 8-0 down the Warriors led 20-8 at halftime, largely thanks to a hattrick from David Fusitu’a.
But instead of closing the game out, they allowed the Knights right back into it and for a while, it looked as if Stephen Kearney’s tenure as Warriors coach would be getting off to a dreadful start.
While the Warriors have been able to win their opening game of the season for the first time since 2009, there’s plenty of work needed
to be done before they take on the Storm on Friday night.
The Warriors came close to scoring in the sixth minute, with Shaun Johnson skirting down the hight edge. He passed the ball outside him to Tuimoala Lolohea, who put through a chip kick in goal, but Johnson wasn’t able to beat Dylan Phythian to the ball.
But four minutes later the Knights were in front from their first real attack. A bomb went up that Lolohea and Peter Mata’utia stretched out for and it was the Knights centre who grabbed the ball and grounded it.
In the 22nd minute the Knights’ Trent Hodkinson kicked a penalty following Hoffman not releasing a player at the tackle.
There was at last something to cheer about for the 13,712 Warriors fans in the crowd when Fusitu’a finished off a nice backline move, where he received the final pass from Johnson, ran through a gap and scored.
Solomone Kata put the Warriors in front in the 33rd minute, taking a lightning quick pass from Roger Tuivasa-sheck and running through to score.
A third Warriors try followed soon after, Johnson putting up a cross fieldkick, Lolohea grabbing it in the air and flicking it back to Fusitu’a to score before returning to the ground.
Then, just as the halftime hooter, sounded Fusitu’a brought up his hat-trick, receiving a flick pass from Johnson a metre from the Knights line.
A concern early in the second half was Simon Mannering leaving the field with a neck injury, which led to Isaiah Papali’i making his NRL debut. Previous to this Issac Luke left the game, with what maybe a rib injury, forcing Bodene Thompson to play the rest of the game at hooker.
Jack Stockwell gave the Knights hope with a try in the 54th minute, forcing his way through to Warriors defenders and they were right back in it when Nathan Ross scored on an overlap in the left corner.
Ross went in for his second try with 14 minutes left on the clock to put the Knights two points in front and at that point Kearney must have been wondering what he’d let himself in for.
But the man he took the captaincy off managed to deliver the goods to give the team their first win of the season.