KEY POINTS:
There was an air of calm at Warriors training this week, no hint that confidence nor team morale had been shattered by Monday's hiding in Manly.
The players accepted collective responsibility for the 52-6 loss immediately after the game and this week their focus has been on improving individually and thus building better team work.
They and their coach Ivan Cleary still have no clues as to what went wrong and still maintain preparation was good and that there was no complacency, no over-confidence after the good win over Parramatta the previous weekend.
"We haven't had to say much this week, we all knew we played poorly," said five-eighth Michael Witt. "The harder we tried the worse it got. For myself, I tried to do more and just dug the hole deeper. There were so many silly errors, Manly are a good side and if you give them all the ball you kill your chances."
But Witt said it was not doom and gloom at the club this week as they worked towards the game against Newcastle at Mt Smart tomorrow.
"We can't lose confidence in our game. We know we can compete, we just have to control the ball. We have a chance to fix it this weekend," Witt said.
Witt's outstanding kicking record, 93 per cent last season and nine from nine this year, is a big bonus for the club. It's something he practises for an hour three times a week, hitting maybe 30 shots at goal from all angles, assistant coach John Ackland punting them back.
The long sideline shots don't perturb him.
"If you kick it straight it'll go over, no matter where from." Mental approach is important, he said. "I have a routine I go through and part of it is knowing I can kick them."
The new boy in the side, Masterton-born and Aussie-raised Ryan Shortland, also voiced confidence in his ability.
He had done plenty of work in preparation and had plenty of time running with the top side and was familiar with all the plays and calls, Shortland said as he prepared for just his second game in the NRL.
The 22-year-old tore his right knee ligament just after his debut for the Storm early in 2007 then tore it again while training back to fitness. Coach Cleary had that one change to the team beaten by the Eagles in mind quickly after the game because they were at Sydney airport when Shortland was told he would be left centre against Newcastle.
The missing injured Steve Price, Jerome Ropati and Wade McKinnon were of course listed as one reason for being beaten but their absence does not explain the size of the 52-6 gap.
The man replacing McKinnon at fullback was perhaps the Warriors' best in Manly but even Lance Hohaia accepted some of the blame.
"It's early in the season - maybe it's best we got that out of the way," Hohaia said.
"I don't see us as a side that gets floggings and we all know it's not good enough. There wasn't much said in the changing room, everyone was disappointed.
"Now we just want to get out on the paddock again, get our confidence back, do things properly and do things well and earn some respect."
Hohaia's role at fullback has not been that of the traditional No 1, more an extension of the utility role.
He made plenty of dummy-half runs on Monday and was up in the line more, whereas McKinnon's trademark was hitting it at pace. Hohaia likes getting the ball both in traffic and on kick-return. He wants to keep McKinnon's number one jersey for the season while the specialist continues to recover from knee surgery.
"Ivan has shown confidence in me and now I just want to learn more and improve in the job. It's a luxury for me to play in one position for a while," said the hooker/lock/halfback/five-eighth/centre-cum -fullback.
The six consecutive losses last season had taught the side plenty about backing up and working hard to get through adversity, he said.
"It steeled us for things to come." There had been no dissension in the ranks during that woeful run and there was none after Manly.
"We're all mates, we're close and we all know as individuals we just didn't perform," Hohaia said.
"Everyone has to look at themselves and everyone knows it." They have no injury concerns and nor do the Knights, who have centre Adam MacDougall as 18th man.
He is expected to clear a fitness test on a bruised knee bone and to play.
The Warriors under-20s side has lost captain Daniel O'Regan with a hamstring strain and lock Scott Jones, wrist, from tomorrow's curtainraiser. Their young prop Russell Packer is proving a valuable workhorse and showing promise of progression to the NRL. In the three games so far he has made 203m, 192m and then 193m as well as 27 tackles against Manly U-20s.
COMPLETION RATES AWFUL
It's not only the Warriors dropping the ball early in the 2008 NRL season. Across the competition, completion rates are down 16 per cent against the first three rounds of 2007.
Of course they always get better as players improve their match fitness and combinations build. But this season they may not improve as much as they usually do given the added fatigue factor since the reduction from 12 to 10 interchanges.
Most teams are struggling to reach the average across 16 teams which is exactly 70 per cent. That number is dragged up by a couple of good teams - notably Wests Tigers who are the competition's best - getting to the kick on 81 per cent of their sets of six.
The Warriors are the worst at 62 per cent from their three games. But they are not far behind Penrith (63 per cent), Souths, Sharks (64 per cent) and the Cowboys (65 per cent).
Warriors coach Ivan Cleary agreed there were opportunities for teams at the back end of each half as fatigue became an issue and said coaches were still studying and analysing each other's moves with the interchange.
"I think teams are getting used to how to use it - there's definitely guys out there who are tired, even early in the game." Cleary has taken the team back to fundamentals this week as he seeks to turn around their third-worst loss in 14 seasons and the worst since he took charge in 2006.
"What we need to do is control the ball and we just didn't do that [against Manly]," he said. But he didn't regard the game as a measure of where they are at. "I don't think it was a good barometer of anything."
Jerome Ropati is out for at least two more weeks. Captain Steve Price feels he is making good progress with his hamstring strain but the doctors have still not given him a return date.
Cowboys fullback Matt Bowen is out of tonight's game against Parramatta with a knee tear.
