NRL: Brown adds to Warriors' injury woes

Warriors forward Lewis Brown suffered a foot injury during yesterday’s loss to the Panthers. Photo / NZPA

The Warriors have yet another injury worry ahead of this weekend's NRL match away to the Melbourne Storm.

Backrower Lewis Brown sustained a foot injury late in the 40-12 defeat to the Panthers at Mount Smart Stadium yesterday. He is set to have an x-ray to determine the extent of the injury.

Warriors coach Ivan Cleary is hopeful he will have Micheal Luck back from a hand injury for the match against defending NRL champions the Storm.

"Micheal Luck will be back, but I don't know about anyone else at this point," Cleary said.

The Warriors went into yesterday's game without Luck, captain Simon Mannering, last year's captain Steve Price, halfback Brett Seymour and winger Manu Vatuvei, and played like a team lacking leadership, particularly in the forwards.

A returning Luck would definitely help the Warriors' defence and provide some solidity which was lacking against the Panthers.

Vatuvei's hamstring injury is being assessed on a day-by-day basis.

The Warriors put on an insipid first half display yesterday, conceding 22 unanswered points as a result of errors and poor options.

They improved in the second half but the damage was done.

It puts the Panthers into second place on the NRL table, though they will be pushed back to third after tonight's Melbourne-Manly clash if the Storm win or if the Sea Eagles win by more than six points.

Panthers coach Matt Elliott was in no doubt the Warriors would improve with the return of their senior players.

"It's a bigger impact than you think," he said.

"It's not just the performance of the player that you miss, it's the feelings of confidence that they give to the players around them as well."

Missing players or not, the Warriors will not enjoy watching videos of their game yesterday, the first half in particular.

They regularly dropped the ball, twice turned the ball over on the last tackle inside their half and conceded three tries from crossfield bombs by Panthers halfback Luke Walsh.

They showed a little spine in the second half but were clearly outplayed by a well-drilled Panthers team who have now won three consecutive games.

"The first half was nearly bordering on embarrassing," Tate said.

"I don't know if we were falling in the trap of thinking it's just going to happen for us at home. We've got to turn up and earn our wins."

The Warriors completed just 23 of their 34 sets of six compared to 34 of 40 for the Panthers, made 13 errors to their opponents' six and generally looked lethargic, especially in the first half.

"We started poorly, gave away too much possession and they hung on to it," Cleary said.

"We just didn't give ourselves a chance in that first half."

Three of the Panthers' four first half tries came from crossfield bombs from Walsh, resulting in tries to Adrian Purtell, Lachlan Coote and Michael Gordon.

The other first half try went to hooker Kevin Kingston, who took the final pass after a missed tackle allowed Brad Tighe to break down the left wing from inside his own half.

It was a changed home team that finally started to show some spirit after the break and within 10 minutes they were back within 10 points after tries to Ukuma Ta'ai and Tate.

But any hope the Warriors had were quashed when Panthers five-eighth Travis Burns forced his was over the line in the 58th minute, and further tries to Purtell and Kingston stretched the victory margin to 28 points.

"Any time we come away over here with two points I'm pretty happy," Elliott said.

"It's a dangerous place to come and I was pretty proud of what we did."

- NEWSTALK ZB, NZPA