Warriors remain work in progress but are building from a good base

The bad news for the Warriors is that they lost 20-12 to the Roosters on Saturday. The good news is that there are another 22 games to be played this season.

Warriors fans are used to feeling frustrated after games and there was plenty to feel infuriated about from their performance at Allianz Stadium, particularly with how they failed to score over the last 18 minutes, despite dominating play.

But there was also further evidence of the impact Andrew Webster is having as the club’s coach and as the season progresses wins will come.

“There are three things we want to be,” Webster said after the game.

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“Resilient, have each other’s back and keep turning up for each other.

“We want to get the details right though. In the NRL, being tough and working hard for each other isn’t going to be enough. You’ve got to get the details and execution.

“But it’s a great place to start. If you’re going to want any of those three things, you’re going to want resilience, so I’m proud of that.”

Webster is optimistic he can sort out why the Warriors lost their composure when on attack towards the end of the game, with the worst incident being the lack of anyone coming in to play dummy half when Ed Kosi was talked close to the line.

Something else he’ll need to look at is Adam Pompey, Tohu Harris and Brayden Wiliame all giving away penalties for escorting when high kicks went up.

All clubs try to gently ease opposition players away from the ball and create space for their team-mate to catch a bomb, but Warriors players do need to be more subtle about it and not make it look so obvious.

However, Warriors captain Tohu Harris said he was pleased with how the team got themselves into the game after a poor start.

“We lost a couple of guys early and we didn’t have much possession, especially in the first half,” Harris said.

“But the group was calm and we’ve got guys who can slot into different positions pretty well.

“We knew that we had to start completing sets and get into a bit of an arm wrestle and a rhythm to get ourselves back into the game.

“I thought we did that pretty well, but we didn’t do it for long enough periods.”

It was another outstanding performance from Harris. As well as running the ball for 144 metres, he also made 62 of the Warriors’ 407 tackles.

But even though the Warriors are having to defend so much, he feels a positive is that they’re able to end games strongly.

“We’d obviously like to make less tackles, but I feel we had enough in the tank to be able to execute our plays and go through that,” he said.

“But we didn’t do a good enough job to get those details right and build pressure.

“It probably came down to the details and building pressure that we didn’t get right.

“The juice in the tank and our fatigue levels were fine, but we’d like to have a bit more energy and I’d like to think those details will come with less fatigue, but there was enough there for us to execute.”

The Warriors lost Jackson Ford and Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad during the game for failed HIA tests and their availability to play against the Cowboys on Saturday in Townsville will depend on how they get through the NRL’s protocols during the week.

If they miss the Cowboys game Josh Curran is likely to come into the starting for Ford, with Bayley Sironen moving into the 17, while Taine Tuaupiki who recently had his train and trial contract upgraded could be the starting fullback and even though he’s yet to play an NRL game, Tuaupiki looks to be a player who has a bit of x-factor about him.