Warriors coach Nathan Brown has doubled down on criticism of the effort his side showed in the second half of their record loss against Melbourne on Monday, suggesting fear of further failure played a part.
NRL: Warriors coach Nathan Brown doubles down on criticism that players gave up in Storm loss as focus turns to Raiders
![Christopher Reive](https://s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/nzme/b521f3be-f6a7-47fb-800b-50fe8bb933a4.png)
Warriors coach Nathan Brown. Photo / Photosport
"To be a good club, we need to be like that. It's something we felt we're improving at, but we dropped the ball in the second half the other day and if I didn't say it, I'd be lying to you. It's happened now; we just have to address it and move on."
![Dejected Warriors players during the thrashing at the hands of the Storm. Photo / Photosport](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/RVIVFJC3WMJQHEWM6XBWODSLRY.jpg?auth=06a5b2609d3bea847d474110e72e33006760dae38eabf7a8eb21d3201abc745c&width=16&height=11&quality=70&smart=true)
The Warriors have historically bounced back well after gigantic losses. After their last record defeat – a 62-6 loss to the Penrith Panthers in 2013 – the club went on a five-game winning streak, while also winning immediately after then-record losses in 2004 and 2008.
This weekend, they meet the struggling Canberra Raiders on Saturday looking to continue that trend.
Despite the loss, Brown has made minimal changes to his side. Outside of replacements for Josh Curran (knee), Dallin Watene-Zelezniak (concussion) and Aaron Pene (suspension), only winger Edward Kosi has been replaced in the run-on side, with Rocco Berry coming into the squad in his place.
While there was no hiding from the result, Brown said he hoped the side would learn from the loss to Melbourne as they looked to get back to winning ways.
"If I'm being honest, we felt as a club we'd just gone down three tries to two to the Roosters and won three games on the bounce before that, so we felt we were heading in the right direction," Brown said.
"We can't go and make mass changes on the back of one half of footy. There were some things that happened in the second half from an effort point of view and some small areas of the game we were extremely disappointed with individuals - they're being made aware of it or will be made aware of it - it's not something we want in our club or something we want to accept, but mass changes all the time is probably not the answer.
"What I hope is, there were some younger players who had some really difficult days, you just want them to learn from it, that's all. You want the experience – obviously it's a bad experience – but you want them to get some good out of it, and some good out of it is, the things they got wrong, understanding what sort of impact it has not only on them but on the team."