NRL: Former Warrior Tui Lolohea's poor second-half symptomatic of Wests Tigers woes

Former Warrior turned Wests Tigers playmaker Tui Lolohea had a mixed afternoon in Sunday's heavy defeat to the Sydney Roosters. Photo / Getty Images.

Wests Tigers coach Ivan Cleary hopes next week's return of halfback Luke Brooks will help Tuimoala Lolohea gel with the NRL club's attack.

But the new Tigers five-eighth has a far bigger problem to fix that seems to be systematic of the entire club - his second-half performances.

The Tigers collapsed to a 24-6 second-half scoreline in Sunday's heavy defeat to the Roosters, the 10th time in 13 matches they have come away worse for wear after the break.

In that sense, Lolohea's performance was a classic game of two halves on Sunday at Campbelltown.

He scored in the opening 40 and was unlucky not to have a shot at a second after colliding with Roosters fullback Michael Gordon while chasing a kick.

But after the break he started the Tigers' rot with a simple dropped ball on the last tackle, before he ended up topping the team's error count with three.

"It's not easy for him - especially without Luke," Cleary said.

"Having said that he has a job to do and he's got to keep working at that.

"He hasn't played a lot of first grade lately. That's probably why second halves get a bit hard. There were probably a few guys out there today where second halves got a bit hard."

Lolohea arrived at the Tigers a fortnight ago, after spending two months languishing in reserve grade at the Warriors.

He had looked dangerous at times with ball in hand, but desperately needs an 80-minute performance to help turn the struggling Tigers around. But the Tigers' second-half woes aren't restricted to him - those problems were around long before his first game for the club earlier this month.

On Sunday they completed at just 68 per cent of their sets in the second period, well down on the 87 per cent they finished in the first.

According to Fox Sports Stats, Sunday's performance also marked the fourth consecutive game where they missed more tackles in the second half than they did in the first.

"It was like we stayed in the sheds in the second half," Tigers captain Aaron Woods said. "We didn't bring anything out - we weren't enthusiastic at all."

- AAP