NRL: Cleary remains a finals believer

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Warriors coach Ivan Cleary is convinced his players are still capable of replicating their incredible run of the past two seasons and scraping into the playoffs.

The Warriors slumped to a 28-14 defeat to Brisbane on Friday night, their ninth defeat of what has been an extremely disappointing campaign. They are likely to find themselves five points off the top eight at the end of the weekend, leaving them needing seven wins in their last nine games to have even a chance of prolonging their season.

Last year they won eight of their last 10 regular-season games and went on to be ousted one game short of the grand final. In 2007, the equation read nine wins and a draw in their last 12 round-robin matches.

"Absolutely we can do it," Cleary said bullishly. "But for that to happen, we have to build some trust back into our game and the only way we will get that is from results.

"It's almost pointless talking about our dreams down the track. I really feel we have to turn our effort of recent weeks into a result. Our focus can only be next week."

That means taking on the Bulldogs, who were joint leaders heading into this weekend's round 17 and who have undergone a remarkable transformation since picking up last year's wooden spoon (see p67).

It is a difficult task and it doesn't get any easier for the Warriors, given they still face the Dragons (home), Titans (home), Bulldogs again (away) and Storm (home).

It seems impossible when you consider they have won only once away from home this season (against Manly in round two) and only five altogether.

Confidence is clearly low. Against the Broncos, the Warriors started extremely well, jumping out to an 8-0 lead inside 20 minutes in a dominant display and it was 27 minutes before they produced their first error.

It was a costly one, however, with Simon Mannering throwing a dreadful pass to no one with the line open, and the game turned.

"It's missed opportunities like that which sum up our season," Cleary lamented.

"We blew two almost gift tries and came up with a couple of errors on our own goal line that led to tries [to Brisbane]. At crucial moments we are not getting the job done and we have to be better than that.

"Those things are hard for everyone to take, including supporters and players. You can see how much effort the guys are putting in but our chemistry, our synergy, is not there for some reason. All we can do is keep working hard and make sure everyone is on the same page because there is no magic formula.

"It's almost like the guys are trying too hard and pushing things that aren't on. If you are winning games, you tend to trust the process but when you are losing and things happen like Simon's loose pass, that trust isn't there. It feels like we are getting punished hard for our mistakes but that's the level we are playing at."

It doesn't help that their attack is yielding only 15.4 points all year, the second-worst in the competition. That figure drops below 14 a game from round three and only three times have they topped 20 points all season. Teams simply don't win often when they can't muster points.

Earlier in the season, the Warriors would get into the opposition 20m and then stand back and expect halfback Stacey Jones to produce some magic.

Now they are looking more dangerous only to produce costly errors, like that of Mannering and another bungling effort by winger Denan Kemp in the second half against Brisbane.

Ben Matulino and Kevin Locke also spilled the ball near their own line, which led directly to Broncos tries.

Captain Steve Price, who was the Warriors' best on Friday with two tries and a game-high 221m, said the players had not spoken about the playoffs for the past two weeks.

"We can't be worried about long-term stuff and can only worry about the now," he said echoing his coach.

"Our attitude hasn't changed. We still want to win footy matches.

"We don't get more desperate just because of the time of the year it is. I would be disappointed if we play harder now than we did in round one.

"We spoke in the week about the fact we weren't working as a group. We are busting our arses as individuals but weren't doing it as a group. We improved a lot in this area [against the Broncos]."

It is scant return. The Warriors were third-favourites heading into the season and success is usually judged on whether they make the playoffs or not. That possibility is now looking slim, at best.