NRL: Warriors need to sharpen defence

Albert Vete of the Warriors makes a run during the round 12 NRL match between the New Zealand Warriors and the Newcastle Knights. Photo / Getty Images

The Warriors know their defence needs sharpening with halfback Shaun Johnson calling for greater hunger defending their own line.

Sunday's patchy 24-20 NRL victory over the Knights made it three in a row for the Warriors but defensive lapses at key stages made the result closer than it should have been.

Despite leading the under-strength Knights by 10 points or more at three different stages, 14-4 in the first half, 20-8 shortly after the break, and 24-14 inside the last quarter, the Warriors struggled to put the visitors away.

Johnson was unhappy the Knights were allowed to post four tries and said improving their defence would be the Warriors' focus ahead of their clash against reigning NRL premiers South Sydney in Perth on Saturday.

"Defence is always a work in progress," said Johnson. "We just wanted to improve on what we've been doing in the last couple of weeks and at stages of the game we were doing that really well. But still, leaking 20 points, four tries that were pretty soft tries is pretty disappointing.

"We've just got to get that real hunger back in our defensive line and we all know that. We all feel it so we'll be working hard on it this week."

Coming off last week's bye round some rustiness was to be expected and Johnson was confident the Warriors would get better.

"It's always a challenge. Coming off the bye you've obviously had a good break and you've got to build yourself up for a physical battle," he said.

"We got the win but we're under no illusions that we're playing our best footy. We've really scrapped home with some important results in the past few weeks but there's still a lot of improvement in us."

Back-rower Ryan Hoffman was pleased the Warriors were finding ways to win tight games but said they need to learn to shut the door on teams earlier.

"I think we're the ugliest team at the moment with the way we've had our wins," he said.

"We should have finished tonight a hell of a lot better than what we did."

"I thought we had it under control but we need to finish these wins a lot better.

"But you never get too disappointed winning football games. We've built ourselves a nice little streak and it's up to us to keep it going."