NRL: Warriors look for rapid improvement

The Warriors' poor completion rate caught up with them in the final stages of the match as the Cowboys scored 18 points in the last eight minutes. Photo / Getty Images

A week of soul-searching looms for the New Zealand Warriors after they delivered one of their worst National Rugby League performances of the year yesterday.

The Warriors made numerous errors, failing to hold on to the ball and generally looked out of sorts as they were thrashed 34-12 by the North Queensland Cowboys at Mt Smart Stadium.

They amazingly had a chance to win the game, being down 16-12 with a good run of possession for a good part of the second half.

But the 28 per cent completion rate and a huge tackle count against them eventually paid its toll on the Warriors as the Cowboys piled on 18 points in the last eight minutes of the game.

Some of that was down to a solid Cowboys forward effort and a ball that was slippery at times due to rain.

But Warriors captain Steve Price said all of his team were off their game against a Cowboys team who beat the in-form St George Illawarra Dragons last week.

"We just didn't give ourselves a chance. I'm sure the Cowboys would have been pretty happy with how we played," he said.

"Most of the time they didn't even have to work for what they got."

The Warriors were first on the board from a Denan Kemp penalty but the visitors dominated possession most of the first half, aided by a 9-2 error count against the Warriors.

Tries to Luke O'Donnell and Johnathan Thurston helped them to a 10-2 lead at the break, and to some extent the home team were lucky they were not down further.

After a try apiece early in the second half, the Warriors were brought back into the game when Cowboys interchange player James Tamou was sinbinned for laying on Lance Hohaia as he tried to play the ball near the Cowboys line.

A few minutes later, the home team made use of their extra man by putting Kemp over in the right corner, and they had several chances in the next 10 minutes.

But the Cowboys held firm and they made their weight of po ssession against a tiring Warriors defence tell in the last eight minutes with three tries, one of them a gem for Ben Farrar in a 60m move featuring offloads, reverse passes and a grubber kick and chase.

"It was our best win of the year, I would say, given that we had one man in the bin and they had all the running there for a bit," Cowboys coach Neil Henry said.

"It was only the last 10 minutes of the game that we were able to consolidate on the four-point lead."

The win puts the Warriors down to 11th place on nine points, though still just two points outside the top eight.

They had been a little unlucky not to have come out of some previous games with points but they were similarly error-prone against the Dragons in their last match two weeks ago.

They had a bye last week but coach Ivan Cleary refused to blame it, saying that seven of his team were playing representative football last week.

"It was way down on anything we've delivered this year. It was our worst performance," Cleary said.

"Everyone's got to have a pretty good look in the mirror."

Price said grief over the fact the Warriors' injured teammate Jessie Royal's three-year-old son Matarae was battling cancer - which prompted all team members to shave their heads this week - was not a factor as they had known about Matarae's issues for weeks.

The Warriors are away to Canberra next week before returning home to face the Tigers the week after.

- NZPA