League: Warriors grind out win despite dodgy rulings

Awen Guttenbeil and Jerome Ropati enjoy the victory against the Sydney Roosters last night. Picture / Fotopress

Don't mention the ref.

There were Pythonesque exchanges after the Warriors overcame dodgy decisions from officials at the aptly named Aussie Stadium to tough out a win over arch-rivals the Roosters.

Tim Mander has never been their favourite whistler and hasn't been in charge at Ericsson Stadium since he was booed off to a "Mander sucks" chant early last year.

On Saturday night he took the advice of touch judges to twice deny wing Francis Meli tries for last-passes that were flat and should have been approved but were called forward. That allowed the Roosters to lead 12-8 at halftime.

When the Warriors' other wing, Todd Byrne, got over the line in the second half he was denied the try because Monty Betham had been wrestling with Anthony Tupou 40 metres upfield. Mander gave the Roosters a penalty and after a dodgy turnover, Brett Finch scored to give the Roosters a 22-8 lead that looked unassailable.

Warriors coach Tony Kemp later asked the media what they made of the officials' decision-making and an exchange between Mander and Warriors' captain Stacey Jones that followed the Betham incident. Jones was warned away.

Kemp didn't need to talk about all that. Better to focus on the positives to come out of the win. At last the team had come home in a tight one, beating the opposition and the 14th man.

Roosters coach Ricky Stuart wouldn't talk about Mander's performance nor the Byrne no-try decision, which flew in the face of the action taken during the Eels-Dragons game last weekend when Trent Barrett and P. J. Marsh were fighting and Wade Mackinnon scored, the try allowed.

He'd made it a personal rule not to talk about referees at all, Stuart said. He's been fined twice for airing his views on that subject. He couldn't talk about the Byrne try because that would involve talking about the referee. But he was clearly filthy that the Roosters hadn't made the most of the help they'd had from the poor decisions, letting slip a big lead.

Picking themselves up after decisions against them and playing on regardless has long been a problem for the Warriors but on Saturday night they made a showcase of it. They were down 12-8 at halftime and 22-8 with 32 minutes left, then scored three times in 11 minutes to take a two-point lead.

Then they closed it out, forcing repeat sets and a goal-line drop-out that had the Roosters playing at the wrong end of the field and thus denied any chance to come back.

The error rate was contained, discipline was good, although the vice-captain should not be putting the team in a position to lose tries.

There was great metre gain, as usual, from Ruben Wiki, and back-up from Iafeta Paleaaesina and the Roosters props couldn't match it. But in the end it was the Warriors' little men who delivered the points.

In the 60th minute hooker Lance Hohaia was on the end of a great short-passing interchange featuring Jerome Ropati and Brent Webb down the right side.

Minutes later Webb backed up when Richard Villasanti made a big bust on the angle, stepping around Anthony Minichiello to score.

Then Hohaia was in again after the Warriors went end-to-end, Webb initiating a break and delivering the back-pass for the 24-22 lead.

Jones missed the goal, his only wide shot of the night. He again led the side well and ran lots of metres himself to offer a threat and deliver the assists that counted for points.

Sione Faumuina and Clinton Toopi also threatened with line-breaks and off-loads. It helped the Warriors look like a team that can push on as a real prospect.

They need to win five games out of the remaining six.

The big plus is captain Steve Price, who will push fitness tests to get a pass on his injured knee and hopefully will play against the Raiders at Ericsson Stadium next Saturday, where the 5.30pm start and lack of competing rugby might draw a crowd to keep them alive.

Then they face hapless Penrith away, the Eels at Ericsson, Melbourne away, the last-placed Knights at Ericsson and Manly away.

The Roosters now risk missing a top-eight place.

Said Stuart: "There were three individual misses, which we talked about a lot in our preparation for the game. It cost us three tries - they were long-range tries. That's the disappointing part about it, it wasn't a problem with our structure.

"They had a bigger team than us and in the end that weighed in their favour. They had a big, powerful team for 80 minutes."

The Roosters had missed their four sidelined regulars, Michael Crocker, Adrian Morley and Ryan Cross (suspended) and Chris Flannery (injured).

"Three individual misses cost us very dearly. That's a really important two points."

As it was for the Warriors.