Those assignments are not necessarily death sentences, but the Warriors will need to produce a much more consistent effort than they managed against the Dragons.
"Obviously it is disappointing but at the end of the day we are in the finals somewhere and it doesn't matter where we play, we have got to beat the side we play against," five-eighths James Maloney said.
"We will take a bit out of this [defeat], obviously we have got to improve. When we were on top we probably didn't drive the nail in and when they came back we struggled to turn the momentum again."
Gifted a perfect start when Ben Horby launched his first two kick-offs over the dead ball line, the Warriors led 10-0 thanks to Krisnan Inu and Kevin Locke tries.
Inu's score came courtesy of a clever Joel Moon offload, while Locke danced his way past five defenders.
But the Warriors then clocked off horribly to gift Mark Gasnier a try from the Dragons' first meaningful attack. Beau Scott was held for what seemed an eternity before offloading and a bunch of Warriors assumed the play was over, with some even turning their backs, allowing Gasnier to stride to the line.
A brilliant Brett Morris finish tied it up before Feleti Mateo and Locke combined to send Bill Tupou over.
Tupou has been a minor revelation on the wing this season, but his bubble burst seven minutes into the second half when he dived haplessly at a Darius Boyd grubber when he had time to hold his feet, with Boyd scoring unopposed.
By then the signs were already ominous for a Warriors side that had become pedestrian in attack just as the Dragons rediscovered their timing on the edges.
A sweeping Dragons attack down the left ended with a Jamie Soward penalty goal that put them in front for the first time, and Jason Nightingale then finished strongly in the right corner.
Soward's conversion put the Warriors in an eight-point hole with 20 minutes remaining, but Mateo's 70th-minute try meant they were close enough if they were good enough. They weren't. A lack of cohesion saw a golden chance to strike go begging with three minutes remaining, with Boyd eventually returning Maloney's rushed grubber 90 metres downfield. The Warriors halted the attack but Ben Matulino was ruled offside and Soward was allowed to run the final 94 seconds off the clock while lining up his close-range penalty.
It may have been a case of could-have and should-have for the Warriors, but they once again failed to close out a big match under pressure.
