Rugby league: Charging Knights engulf Warriors

By PETER JESSUP

Halfback Andrew Johns did what everyone knew he could at Ericsson Stadium yesterday, played the game the Warriors were expecting - and led his Knights to a decisive, 32-14 victory.

Following the loss of Shontayne Hape early against the Roosters last week, the home team again lost a player to a similar injury during the opening exchanges when captain Monty Betham had to be helped off. Centre John Carlaw also needed assistance in the ninth minute of the second half, after slamming his head on the ground when hit after taking a high ball.

The Warriors were visibly wilting in the latter stages as Newcastle ran in tries in the 58th, 63rd and 69th minutes, but coach Daniel Anderson did not blame the lack of available interchange players for the third-round NRL loss.

Nor was he pointing to the lack of leadership, even though Kevin Campion had to be left out of the starting line-up at the last minute because of the damage above his eye caused by a head-clash last weekend.

"We were out-played, out-smarted," said Anderson, who rated it his most disappointing day since he started with the team.

Yesterday's effort showed that their training to eliminate unforced errors had so far failed.

"We played like a team that doesn't want to be in the play-offs. We didn't remain composed. We knew Andrew Johns would run and he did."

And it seemed that every time he did so inside the Warriors' red zone, he scored. His two first-half tries set up a 16-4 lead at halftime.

The Warriors won only the first 10 minutes, repelling the Knights early with enthusiastic defence, then making repeated line-breaks and looking likely to score.

Then Betham went down. Stacey Jones asked referee Tim Mander to halt proceedings because the hooker needed to go off and they wanted a replacement, but Mander called play on and Johns ran through traffic from 10m out to score.

Mander later explained that the rules required a team trainer to signal that a player could not continue.

He made a number of confusing decisions yesterday, but the bizarre follow-on from the Knight's last try, to Anthony Quinn, was not his fault.

Mander called for a video review to see if Quinn had stepped into touch, and the ruling was "no try". There were inter-referee communications, then the big board showed "try." Video referee Eddie Ward's finger had slipped onto the wrong button, Mander said afterwards.

Yesterday's stand-in captain - and the likely leader for next Saturday night's game against the Cowboys in Townsville - is Jones.

He had no clear explanation for the sub-par effort yesterday, which included fumbles at the kick-off and early in the tackle count and some poor defence.

"Every little thing went wrong, our options were all bad," he said. But he did not quite agree with the coach's assessment that it was back to the bad old days.

"We just have to learn from that."

Campion, who hopes to make the trip to Townsville, will be sorely needed. Yesterday, the absence of a forward leader showed in the way the Warriors twice ran out of tackles on the Knights' line without offering a kick that could have forced a goal-line drop-out, return of the ball and a chance at scoring.