Johnson was far from poor but his option-taking towards the end of sets, particularly in the last 20 minutes, was often misjudged.
The Tigers also held their nerve whenever the 20-year-old tried his characteristic drifting, lateral runs and covered support runners well.
"Shaun did some good things," said coach Brian McClennan, "and some other things were not quite as good. But for him, it is all part of the learning curve, part of the journey as an NRL player. I know a lot of people were looking at Benji versus Shaun but it was a ridiculous comparison, if you look at the relative experience of the two players."
Marshall played his 167th NRL match (67 tries) against the Warriors on Friday. It puts him fourth on the all-time appearance list for the Tigers and means he has over 212 hours of NRL game time in the bank. It's sometimes overlooked given his occasional freakish deeds but Johnson has notched up just 25 starts (12 tries) - an equivalent of 33 hours on the field.
Expectation is high now every time Johnson hits the park but it is inevitable that there will be blips.
Overall though, he has yet to reach the week in, week out consistency of halves partner James Maloney. Still, there was much more to this match than just the battle of the number sevens.
It was a game that was there for the taking - especially given the missing Farah factor (the Tigers were also without injured forward trio Gareth Ellis, Chris Heighington and Matt Groat, and lost Chris Lawrence before halftime).
The Warriors weren't at their best but a 10-0 halftime advantage was a great platform. Even after allowing the home side back into the game, an opportunist try created by James Maloney and finished by Konrad Hurrell, saw them back in the lead with 25 minutes to play. In that context, the ease in which Matt Utai was able to crawl across the line in the 64th minute was hard to take.
"This one was a big opportunity for us, going into the bye, to get a bit of momentum," Mannering said. "We didn't play that well in the first half but we led at halftime and had every chance in the game to get the two points and just got soft at the start of the second half.
"You can't let the Tigers have that much ball. Essentially, we lost our momentum for far too long and when we got it back we would give it away again."
"These big games, [these] games without Robbie [Farah] there... you gotta get the two points any way you can," said Marshall.
As an eight-year NRL veteran, Mannering knows how valuable the two points were. . In a carbon copy of his thoughts following the away matches against the Raiders and Roosters, Mannering said one of the keys was response to adversity.
"We need to get back to basics and get back in the cycle," said Mannering. "Too often instead of getting back into our rhythm, we tried things that weren't really on and let them back in the game."
McClennan pinpointed the Tigers' ability to produce repeat sets and their perfect second half completion rate (20/20) as crucial: "It was hard for us to get in the game in the second half," admitted McClennan. "Benji kicked very well and we struggled to mount any pressure."
The elephant in the room remains the Warriors defence. The timeless American adage that 'offence sells tickets, defence wins championships' is as true for the NRL as the NFL and the Warriors are still leaking points. They are conceding an average of just over 24 points a game (exactly double that of the Storm) and have only once had less than 20 scored against them (versus Titans in round four). Only hapless Parramatta have taken more punishment - at 31 points a game.
In some ways, it is a mystery. Against the Broncos, their defence was outstanding and they were gutsy and solid for long periods against the Storm and Roosters.
Even on Friday night they held the Tigers out for 46 minutes and were only undone by a bizarre error by Manu Vatuvei. Generally, that is what is comes down to, lapses in concentration.
"Parts of our defence was quite strong," said McClennan, "though a couple of their tries were very disappointing. In general, I think our defence looks okay but obviously we want to tighten up."
The team will have a few days off this week, before preparing for the Storm's visit in round 13. There is plenty to reflect on; defence, consistency and getting the result across the Tasman, where they are one from five in 2012.
"If we had won it would have been different but now these two weeks are going to drag on a bit," says Mannering. "In this competition we should be getting better every week but I don't know if we are. Against Brisbane we stuck to our guns and were very solid. Against the Roosters we were not quite as good and [Friday] was another step down."
