Woeful Warriors sink to new low as Bunnies hit 60

A line can be put through the Warriors’ season after they leaked 11 tries to the Rabbitohs. David Long reports.

THE Warriors lost their seventh straight NRL game and by far their worst of the season in a 60-22 defeat to the Rabbitohs at Sunshine Coast Stadium yesterday.

While the Warriors have now lost 13 games this year, most of those defeats have been close, often heart-breaking losses.

But this was a blowout, with the Rabbitohs able to break through their defence at will and of most concern is that it happened most often up the middle.

Earlier in the week, Warriors coach Nathan Brown conceded that one more defeat might end the club’s hopes of making the finals this year.

With this loss, that can just

about be confirmed and with the team languishing in 14th place on the ladder, the only consolation is that they’re a better team than the Bulldogs, so aren’t in danger of picking up the wooden spoon.

Stuff understands the Warriors won’t be looking to strengthen their squad before the August 1 deadline, with the short-term signing of Chad Townsend from the Sharks filling up their roster spots and salary cap.

So this is it for the rest of 2021 and while finals’ hopes are now unrealistic, their run home is one of the easiest and they should pick up a few victories, but only if they play much better than this.

It was a superb start from the Warriors, with Dallin WateneZelezniak swooping on a loose pass from Cody Walker, then racing 60m untouched to score.

Once he had dotted the ball down, he went to a TV camera, rocked his arms like he was holding a baby, no doubt dedicating the try to his daughter, Lola, who was born on Friday night.

The Rabbitohs struck back quickly though, benefiting from a repeat set close to the Warriors’ line and under the posts Damien Cook fed the ball to Tom Burgess for an easy score.

That try was aided by a poor kick from Reece Walsh, which went out on the full and so too did the next minutes later. From that attack Jaxon Paulo scored in the corner, so two bad errors from the Warriors young star had put his team on the back foot.

Burgess charged over for his second try in the 19th minute as already the Warriors’ bright start had become a distant memory.

It got worse for the Warriors with Jack Murchie getting knocked out two minutes later and the Bunnies’ fourth try came in the 26th minute when Latrell Mitchell flicked up an offload to Cameron Murray with just the line in front of him.

Walker danced through the

Warriors’ defence for the next try as this started to become embarrassing.

Eliesa Katoa, who came on for Murchie, also picked up a head knock and with both of them failing their HIAs, things weren’t getting any easier for the Warriors.

Jaydn Su’a scored the

Rabbitohs next try while Marcelo Montoya and Kodi Nikorima scored Warriors’ tries just before the break.

Those scores didn’t put the Warriors back in the game, but at least stopped the scoreboard looking so one-sided.

However, Su’a’s next try, two minutes into the second half set the tone for the remainder of the game.

Josh Mansour scored two further tries for the Rabbitohs and Keaon Kolomatangi and Mitchell grabbed one, while the only highlight from a Warriors point of view was a nice score from Walsh, gathering Townsend’s through kick.