New coach Brian McClennan is keeping faith with the New Zealand Warriors’ young brigade, saying they are the NRL club’s future.

The Warriors brought in only one outside recruit – former Gold Coast hooker Nathan Friend – in the off-season, preferring to promote players from the Junior Warriors’ NYC title-winning squad.

McClennan gave two of them – Ben Henry and Konrad Hurrell – their first-grade debuts in the 26-20 loss to Manly in Auckland on Sunday.

Their selection came at the expense of the more experienced Krisnan Inu, who didn’t make the cut for the 17 after having been named on an expanded bench.

McClennan said he picked on trials and training form and he was happy with how Henry and Hurrell had gone in their first NRL appearance, citing their defence over the final half-hour.

“They had good debuts and I’m really pleased for them,” he said.

“That’s the future of our club. We’ve going to keep giving chances to our young ones. They’re the players who have worked hard in training day-in day-out and are on form.”

Against Manly, McClennan changed his originally announced line-up by starting Henry in the centres instead of Hurrell, who came off the bench when Kiwi Jerome Ropati got injured.

Henry had one glaring miss, letting Steve Matai past him for a try that took Manly out to 16-0, but McClennan said it was “ridiculous” to criticise the youngster for being stepped by the seasoned Kiwi centre.

“He’s done that to a few players over the years,” he said of Matai.

Ropati’s injury, a high ankle sprain in his first NRL match back since missing most of last season with a knee reconstruction, is expected to sideline him for four to eight weeks.

It added to an already long Warriors’ casualty list, with props Jacob Lillyman, Sam Rapira and Steve Rapira, and lock Micheal Luck all making late starts to the campaign.