NRL: Mannering - it was 'soft' efforts which cost us

Simon Mannering. Photo / Getty Images.

Warriors captain Simon Mannering accepted it was "soft" efforts which cost his side dearly in their NRL loss to Wests Tigers last night at Leichhardt Oval.

The Warriors were in control of the match at halftime, leading 10-0, but were sluggish out of the blocks to start the second half and conceded two easy tries inside the first ten minutes to find themselves down 12-10.

Stand-in Wests Tigers skipper Benji Marshall was the major architect of the turnaround, putting in a pinpoint kick for Lote Tuqiri to score in the corner before landing the sideline conversion for the lead.

But far from marvelling at the brilliance of his Test teammate, Mannering was simply fuming over the result, which leads into a bye for last year's grand finalists.

"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. They just put a few on us. I'm just disappointed in all."

Warriors coach Brian McClennan was equally disappointed with the missed opportunity, and said his side needed to capitalise more in the first half when they were dominating the contest.

"This one hurts as Simon was saying because we've got the bye and we've got two weeks to stew over it," he said.

"... We got going along and we ended up with more points than them in the first half, but possibly in that stage of the game we needed to convert more."

McClennan felt there was a chance to snatch the game late, but said their lack of patience in attack ultimately led to their downfall.

"We actually started to get back in the game and we were probably a bit impetuous," he said.

"I think we might have bombed on (tackle) four and probably overplayed early in the tackle count.

"It looked like we were going to come back into it but we certainly didn't play anywhere near what we're capable of."

-AAP