NRL: Warriors seek to contain Thurston

Johnathan Thurston is the key to an important win at Mt Smart tomorrow. Photo / Getty Images

Warriors v Cowboys
Mt Smart Stadium, 2pm tomorrow

The Warriors know that containing Cowboys' halfback and captain, playmaker, field-kicker and goal-kicker Johnathan Thurston is the key to an important win at Mt Smart tomorrow.

And that it is the visitors' huge forward pack which sets up Thurston's plays.

"I don't think you'd be a league fan if you didn't like watching him play. We can't watch him this weekend," Warriors' coach Ivan Cleary said of Thurston.

"We have to stop the guys that give him the space."

That is the Cowboys' props Matt Scott, who gained 159m in the 24-20 win over the Dragons last weekend and Shane Tronc (124m), secondrower Carl Webb (103m) and lock Luke O'Donnell (112m).

The Warriors had the bye last weekend while Thurston backed up from the test match. Returning to their home turf after two tough games in Australia for a draw in Melbourne then a one-point loss to the Dragons, the team is aware a win is needed.

"It's not far away," Cleary said. "Over the course of the season if we play well enough the table will sort itself out," he said of their position just outside the top-eight.

Would those two games and the one-point overtime win over the Roosters the last time they played at home toughen them mentally and inspire them to push on if this game turns to another grind?

"I guess we'll find out - we've travelled, played some tough teams, hopefully down the track that will be of some benefit, hopefully that will make us better."

The Warriors will go to Jerome Ropati and Manu Vatuvei on the left side whenever in the Cowboys' red zone because that is where they have scored most tries and also because it is where the visitors are most leaky - Dragons' wing Brett Morris scoring there four times last weekend.

"We've addressed it in a team review, we need to practise what we talked about now, there's no doubt that we were deficient there," Cowboys coach Neil Henry said this week. "Some of it was decision making, other parts of it we had short numbers. We need to adjust our line a bit more. We need to be a bit smarter and quicker to react."

The Cowboys are unchanged after beating Wayne Bennett's revitalised Dragons. The Warriors have wing and goal-kicker Denan Kemp back after a facial infection. Prop Sam Rapira will play on through the season with the sternum injury that kept him out for two games.

Cleary has faith in Kemp to readjust his kicking line after easy misses which could have won each of the past three matches.

Rapira said he was not 100 per cent and was unlikely to be for the remaining four months of the regular season. There is no restriction to his play, "just a bit of pain - you have to play through that every now and then".

His little brother Steve, 21, shifted from the Warriors to Townsville in the off-season and made his debut in round one, playing four games before injury intervened. He and fellow ex-Aucklander James Tamou, 20, vie for one bench spot, Tamou having taken his chance during Rapira's sidelining by helping himself to two tries in two games.

Steve does not want to be known as Sam's little brother. "That's part of the reason that I moved here, I don't want to live in his shadow, I really want to make a name for myself and hopefully I do," he said.

WARRIORS v COWBOYS:

Warriors

Denan Kemp
Joel Moon
Jerome Ropati
Manu Vatuvei
Nathan Fien
Stacey Jones
Sam Rapira
Ian Henderson
Steve Price (c)
Simon Mannering
Jacob Lillyman
Micheal Luck

Interchange: Lance Hohaia, Russell Packer, Jesse Royal, Ben Matulino, 18th man Patrick Ah Van.

Cowboys

Matt Bowen
Ben Farrar
Ashley Graham
Willie Tonga
John Williams
Travis Burns
J. Thurston (c)
Shane Tronc
Aaron Payne
Matt Scott
Carl Webb
Scott Bolton
Luke O'Donnell

Interchange: Grant Rovelli, Steve Southern, Antonio Kaufusi, Steve Rapira.