Warriors players need to look at themselves in mirror says skipper Tohu Harris – صحيفة الصوت

Warriors captain Tohu Harris says the players need to take a look at themselves in the mirror after the second half capitulation against the Raiders on Saturday.

The Warriors looked to be on track to pick up their sixth win of the season as they went to the sheds up 14-0 at the break at GIO stadium.

But when they returned to the locker room 40 minutes later, they did so having recorded their 13th loss of the campaign, going down 26-12, in one of the club’s worst second half performance of the season.

True, it wasn’t as bad as the 54 second half points they conceded against the Storm in in round seven, but that’s not really something to brag about.

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With games against the Storm, Rabbitohs, Cowboys and Panthers still to come this season, there’s the danger that the wheels could really fall off this team.

But Harris says that’s down to whether the players will fight to stop that happening.

“We’ve got to keep our standards high and not accept defeat,” Harris said.

“This competition is a tough competition week in, week out and if we want to be a successful club, we’ve got to show we want success, we can’t just be a team that can turn up and just roll over for other teams.

“So everyone’s got to look at themselves in the mirror and ask if this is what they really want, what they want to get out of their career and what they want to do for this club.”

As the season has gone on, Harris has looked as forlorn as Simon Mannering often was in post match press conferences.

Worn out by having to front up after another disappointing performance and with a second where Corey Harawira-Naera scored two tries, plus one each from Albert Hopoate and Sebastian Kris, Harris didn’t feel like making excuses.

“I felt like we lacked the intensity at the start of the second half,” he said.

“In the first half we did all these simple things really well and we were doing them together.

“In second half we didn’t have that same intensity and Canberra wanted it more.”

But what makes this loss so disappointing is how well the Warriors played for the first 40 minutes, with Jack Murchie and Daejarn Asi both scoring tries in the first seven minutes.

They’re a team that can look very good, but they can also look atrocious too.

“The first half was very solid from us,” Warriors interim coach Stacey Jones said.

“We challenged the group at halftime that Canberra were going to come out with something and we’ve got to go with them. Unfortunately, we didn’t.”

Instead of returning to their homes in Brisbane, the Warriors will head to Auckland on Sunday and spend the week there to prepare for Friday’s game against the Storm.

“But we really wanted to put in a performance so we could go home with feeling good. For 40 minutes we did that, Jones said.

“With the group now, we’ve got to make sure we stay tight, be connected and that second half we were far from that.

“That was the key message we just gave to the group, that we’ve got to stay tight.

“We’ve got an opportunity to go home and play some footy and I said to the boys to get yourselves ready to get back home.”

Broncos bound Reece Walsh was only introduced into the game for the last 14 minutes and Jones explained why he chose to bring him off the interchange bench when he did.

“We brought Reece on when we needed to score points and unfortunately for him, he probably didn’t get to touch the ball as much as we would have liked (one run for six metres).

“I thought Chanel (Harris-Tavita) was doing a really good job at the time and Daejarn as well.

“But when we got behind, that’s when we needed something.”