NRL: Warriors get break on injury front

Joel Moon is sandwiched by South Sydney's Chris Sandow (L) and Ben Lowe during yesterday’s match in Auckland. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The New Zealand Warriors came through their defeat to new National Rugby League leaders South Sydney with one major piece of good news.

Unlike the first three rounds of the season, they ended the match yesterday without any new injuries.

"That's a plus," coach Ivan Cleary said.

"That's the first time. That's the positive out of the day."

The Warriors had eight of their squad unavailable for the 22-16 loss in Auckland because of injury.

Those who sat out the match included first-grade regulars Steve Price, Brent Tate, Manu Vatuvei, Lance Hohaia, Evarn Tuimavave and Ben Matulino.

Centre Tate has a season-ending knee injury, while prop Tuimavave, who hasn't played this year, is expected to be out for some time with a neck problem.

The rest are shorter term casualties, but Cleary was unable to shed any light on whether any of them would be back for the trip to Newcastle next Sunday.

"There's a few guys not too far off, but I'm not sure about next week," he said.

He had no complaints about the effort of the players who took the field against the Rabbitohs.

They dominated territory for large passages, but came up against some enthusiastic South Sydney defence, particularly during a scoreless third quarter.

Cleary said teams usually went into games wanting to do the little things well and he believed the Warriors did that, but they could not turn that into enough points.

"We controlled the second half for so long and we just couldn't score and they scored an opportunist try," Cleary said.

"So full marks to Souths for their defence. There was some big defence on their line."

The crucial piece of opportunism came from winger Fetuli Talanoa with 12 minutes remaining and helped to put Souths ahead for the first time in the match.

The Auckland-born Tongan international defused a bomb and then ran 80m to dot down under the crossbar, handing halfback Chris Sandow an easy conversion for an 18-16 lead.

It was Talanoa's second touchdown of the afternoon, after he had been awarded a first-half penalty try when held back by marker Aidan Kirk during a chase for the ball.

South Sydney coach Jason Taylor was delighted with the way his players were able to repel the many raids on their line.

He also batted away any suggestions that the Warriors had been weakened by their injuries, saying Souths had arrived at Mt Smart Stadium expecting the home side "to be at their very best".

"People wanted to tell us that they had this player out and that player out," he said.

"This is the NRL. Teams have a couple of players out. Well they get to replace them with two players who may not be quite as good, but they are still going to go out there and play to the best of their ability and they are still going to be tough to beat."

Taylor pointed out that South Sydney were without injured fullback Rhys Wesser and suspended winger Nathan Merritt for their 22-12 win over Newcastle last weekend.

While Merritt was back to face the Warriors, and scored the late try that took the Rabbitohs six points ahead, Wesser was still sidelined with a knee problem.

Wesser's replacement, Luke Capewell, also got among the tries, starting and finishing the second of the four that Souths scored.

"If anybody takes us lightly because we've got a player out, then that's a mistake," Taylor said.

"It's the same for every team you play. We knew this was going to be a tough match."

- NZPA