The Warriors are running out of ways to describe the cruelty of close football. For the third time in a month they have lost an NRL match by two points, and once again it was a late try that ripped the result away, the Dolphins edging them 26-24 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday after winger Selwyn Cobbo crossed in the dying stages.
The sting was sharper because the Warriors had looked, for a heartbeat, like the winners. Sam Healey had bustled over to put the New Zealand side back in front late in the contest, the kind of try that usually settles a game of such tight margins. Instead it only set the stage for Cobbo, who answered moments later to snatch the points and leave Andrew Webster’s team to walk off shaking their heads yet again.
It was a match that swung throughout. The Warriors led 12-10 at the break and pushed out to a 20-12 advantage midway through the second half, with Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Jacob Laban among the try scorers. The Dolphins, driven by Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and the goal-kicking of Jamayne Isaako, refused to fade, and the closing 10 minutes turned into the sort of arm wrestle these two clubs seem destined to keep producing. RNZ reported the last six meetings between the sides have now been decided by four points or fewer.
Webster was honest about the finish. “I thought the scoreline was a fair reflection. With four minutes to go, I thought we deserved to be in front, because we fought so hard to get it back, but we didn’t think clear enough at the end of the game, they deserved their try and they deserved their victory,” he said.
For a coach, those last few seconds are the whole problem in miniature. The Warriors have built a side that can get themselves into winning positions against the best teams in the competition. What they cannot yet do is close the door. Their three recent defeats have each come by the same two-point margin, and each was against a genuine contender, the table-topping Penrith Panthers, the Cronulla Sharks and now the Dolphins.
“There’s so much good stuff about what we’re doing. It’s unfortunate that we’re not celebrating in there, but we deserved to be in front, then we deserved to be behind,” Webster said. He was blunt about what the gap to the top now represents. “We’re happy with where we sit, but we know, if we want to go to the next level, we have to learn how to ice these moments. If we do that, we can become a real threat.”
That phrase, learning to ice the moments, is becoming the defining question of the Warriors’ season. Plenty of teams lose close games and slide down the table. The Warriors are not sliding. They sit tied for second on the ladder alongside the Dolphins and the Sydney Roosters, and their points differential of plus 168 keeps them ahead of that group. By almost any measure this is a strong campaign. The frustration is that it could so easily be a great one, with three two-point results going the other way turning a good record into a commanding one.
There was no shortage of individual effort to point to. Kurt Capewell played the full 80 minutes and made 44 tackles, the kind of unglamorous work that keeps a defence honest. Laban backed up a try with 59 tackles and has quietly become one of the side’s most reliable forwards. “I reckon he’s been one of our best for the last month,” Webster said. “He’s strung some 80-minute performances together and when he’s tired, he finds a way through that, he finds another gear.”
Halfback Te Maire Martin was rated by many as the best player on the field, steering the Warriors around the park and giving them direction in the periods when they were on top. Fullback Taine Tuaupiki ran for 184 metres, repeatedly hauling the side out of trouble with strong returns. The effort was there. The polish, in the final exchange, was not.
Webster summed up the strange double edge of the night with the line that probably sticks longest. “There’s something about these two teams. They’re always close games, it’s crazy,” he said.
The schedule now offers a breather. The Warriors have a bye before they travel to face the Wests Tigers, a fixture that on paper should be far more comfortable than the gauntlet of contenders they have just come through. A win there would steady the ship and remind everyone that the ladder still reads kindly. Yet the season will not be defined by beating the teams below them. It will be defined by whether they can finally win one of these heavyweight nailbiters when the finals arrive and the margins matter most.
For now the Warriors are left with the most maddening kind of disappointment, the sort that comes wrapped in genuine encouragement. They are close, closer than they have been in years to the premiership they have chased for so long. The last two points, three times over, are all that has stood in the way.
Do you think the Warriors have what it takes to go all the way this year, or is the inability to close out tight games a sign of something missing? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply