Warriors look past golden-point heartbreak

You could forgive the Warriors for thinking their luck has run out.

Twice in the last three matches they have been brought undone by unorthodox field goals; first James Maloney wobbled one over for the Sharks, then Daly Cherry-Evans sent a left-footed shot over the black dot in rain-soaked Perth to give Manly a golden-point win.

Despite those couple of tough losses, Warriors coach Andrew McFadden is remaining upbeat.

“We didn’t do a lot wrong,” Warriors coach Andrew McFadden said of his side’s fruitless efforts to score the winning point.

Halfback Shaun Johnson had a field goal effort charged down, while prop Sam Lisone had earlier produced a comical air swing, before Cherry Evans gave Manly the win.

“It’s not like they were any better in setting up (for the field goal),” McFadden said.

“They just made their play, but there’s certainly some things we can do that might help us there.”

Johnson, 25, said his side had failed to tire out the Manly defence with the set of six leading up to his unsuccessful field goal attempt.

That enabled Sea Eagles lock Jake Trbojevic to rush out and block the shot.

“Having those one-out carries to find that spot, it gave the (Manly) boys that were coming up the chance to have a breath, because we weren’t really moving them,” Johnson said.

“We’ve done a bit of work around that yesterday so hopefully, if we find ourselves in that situation again, we can put one over.

“We’re very disappointed to go all that way to come up short like that.”

McFadden said it was devastating to lose in golden-point again but wouldn’t be drawn into criticising the NRL’s extra time format.

He said his side was now focused on getting back to winning ways against the Raiders in Canberra on Saturday.

“They’re the rules and that’s what we play to,” he said.

“I think our resilience is building and I think we’ll get over that (defeat) pretty quickly now.”

The Warriors have also won one golden-point match this season, beating the Roosters 32-28 with a winning try from Roger Tuivasa-Sheck in Round 5.

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