Late kick means more heartache for Warriors
Warriors coach Stephen Kearney conceded his team was its own worst enemy in the 22-21 loss to Manly Sea Eagles yesterday.
It was a game where Daly Cherry-Evans landed the second of his field goals with 48 seconds left in golden point time and it notches up the eighth straight defeat for the Warriors.
Given the situation the club are in, they probably would have settled for a draw, but Kearney says it was the nous of knowing what to do in a tight situation that cost them a win, when they were up by seven points with five minutes to go in the second half.
‘‘In this competition I don’t think you ever think you have it in the bag until it’s over,’’ Kearney said.
‘‘It presented itself that way, but it says a fair bit about us, in the sense that we probably are our own worst enemy at times.
‘‘But I was really pleased for the guys in the sense they showed a great deal of courage.
‘‘It’s a shed full of heartbroken, disappointed players, because we did a great deal right out there, we just couldn’t finish it off.’’
It was yet another Warriors home game that was played in the rain and that, added to the team’s abysmal form, meant there were only 9167 diehard fans who came out for this. While the Warriors had nothing left to play for, the Sea Eagles’ season was on the line.
David Fusitu’a was the star of the first half with two tries, while Jake Trbojevic scored for the Sea Eagles.
The score was locked at 8-8 at halftime, but with seven minutes to go it looked like the Warriors had this won when Shaun Johnson landed a field goal after a try to Ken Maumalo just before.
That put the Warriors seven points in front and some solid defence would see them home.
However, with five minutes to go Dylan Walker scored a breakaway try for Manly, then Matt Wright kicked the conversion.
Two minutes from time CherryEvans landed the field goal to send the match into golden-point time and in the last minute of that he did the same to snatch the win.
Cherry-Evans he paid tribute to his team-mates for getting him into the position to land those kicks.
‘‘If you look at where we had our sets start, to begin those sets, there were moments where I never thought we were going to get in range, considering the wind we were running into,’’ Cherry-Evans said.
‘‘But our side rolled their sleeves up and gave me an opportunity to get a kick away.
‘‘I’m very appreciative of how hard we ran the ball, how hard we were able to work to get into a position to win the game.’’