NRL: Price looks likely for Dragons clash

Warriors captain Steve Price. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Still clinging to life in the National Rugby League, the revived New Zealand Warriors are hopeful of returning to full strength for a daunting visit by the table-topping Dragons on Sunday.

The Warriors broke a three-match losing streak with a 30-24 win over the bottom-placed Sydney Roosters at the Sydney Football Stadium, thanks to a double from Manu Vatuvei and a 90m dash from fullback Wade McKinnon in the 75th minute.

It left them five points outside the top eight, and probably needing to win their final seven matches to make the playoffs for a third consecutive year.

The Warriors won without two of their best players, captain Steve Price (concussion) and young winger Kevin Locke (shoulder) who was ruled out on Friday and remained in Auckland.

Team doctor John Mayhew was confident both would be passed fit to face Wayne Bennett's Dragons at Mt Smart Stadium.

Price returned from Wednesday's State of Origin finale with concussion from a Brett White punch, as well as heavy bruising to the hip, and rib cartilage damage.

"With the concussion he seems to be coming through quite well. He'll go through the psychometric tests this week but I'd say he's a good chance of playing next week," Mayhew said.

"Kevin was touch and go for this game, so we're hopeful when we get back it would have settled down and he may be available. It doesn't appear to be a major injury."

Locke suffered the rotator cuff strain in the 14-18 defeat to the Bulldogs the weekend before last.

At 10-18 down at halftime and 20-24 down with 10 minutes left on Sunday, the Warriors were staring down the barrel of being just one point outside wooden spoon territory.

McKinnon then pounced on a Mitchell Pearce grubber on his own 10m line before fending off Kiwis fullback Sam Perrett and racing away to score, before Stacey Jones dived over on the fulltime hooter.

McKinnon said they would face the Dragons with renewed confidence.

"It's always great to be at home but they're at the top for a reason. We're going to have to concentrate on our game and get rid of some little errors and just turn up like we did today," he said.

"This week we were more positive, we looked up with four minutes to go and we still had to play football. We couldn't go into our shells where maybe we have a few times.

"It's just awesome to get that win. Everyone had a positive feeling out there which was good."

Coach Ivan Cleary said a loss would have been "heartbreaking" for his side who showed some defensive spirit in the second half to repel five consecutive sets of six from the Roosters.

Debut five-eighth Isaac John also got kudos as he set up a try to Patrick Ah Van. "I was pretty happy with how he went. There was some good confidence, a really nice pass for a try. Their plan was to send their big men to him and he handled that reasonably well. It was a good start for him," Cleary said.

- NZPA