AUCKLAND: Mongrel, sacrifice. Two words the Warriors have been using as inspiration to restore Mt Smart's once-inhospitable reputation.
Both were in evidence as they hung on for victory over Souths yesterday, although the sacrifice wasn't intended: their best forward, Sam Rapira, is gone for the season and they played nearly half the game with a two-man bench.
After humbling home defeats in the opening rounds (three times they have conceded more than 20 points in the first half), the Warriors needed a new attitude. ''We had to get more mongrel in us
more physicality - I think we've done that,'' said rejuvenated centre Jerome Ropati, who scored two tries and ran for 194 metres after mid-week reports that the club had warned him to lift his game.
''Teams have to travel here and play in front of our crowd, and we have to take advantage of that. We have a fairly new team who haven't played here that much and they are trying to get a feel for that. I think they've done it in the last couple of games.''
Ropati said Warriors players knew they wouldn't see five-eighth James Maloney and prop Rapira back on the field after both were carried away before the 43rd minute. Even so, they scored three times in that spell to take control of the game.
It brought the Warriors' first win this season against a top-eight side, a crucial test of their credentials and of their coach, Ivan Cleary, who began the year as the bookies' favourite to be first for the sack and who must make the final eight to keep his job.
The Warriors began as swiftly as the rain fell. They almost led from the first set and were 6-0 up inside three minutes - with Souths fullback Rhys Wesser already on report - with a try to mark his 150th NRL game from fullback Lance Hohaia. A scrambled Souths try from Colin Best had been cancelled out by Brent Tate's reply before a challenge by Sam Burgess badly bruised the rapidly improving Maloney's back.
Maloney collapsed soon after and trainer Ruben Wiki desperately tried to replace him as a scrum was set but sideline official Alan Caddy refused to allow the interchange and Fetuli Talanoa scored the first of his two tries through the resulting gap.
The rules clearly state changes can't happen at a scrum. But Cleary said: ''It was a farce, ridiculous: it just shows officials sometimes don't have a handle on the context of the game.''
Souths went 18-10 ahead through Wesser but the Warriors scored three times in a nine-minute spell straddling half-time to go 26-18 in front, despite having Rapira chaired off two minutes after the break.
Maloney departed on a malfunctioning golf cart and the early fears for him faded; he'll be out for just a week. But Rapira, whose parents were in the home dressing room afterwards, has almost certainly torn an anterior cruciate ligament and was assessed immediately by orthopaedic specialist Stu Walsh, who agreed with club doctor John Mayhew's initial analysis.
It did not perturb the Warriors, with Rapira's young front-row partner Russell Packer lifting his game admirably. They leaked only one more try, a second from Talanoa, and then defended and defended.
''There has been a shift in the way our players have been preparing,'' said the ever-understated Cleary.
It came at the right time.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...sh-inner-mongrel-on-souths-20100523-w3qk.html
Is this official? Do they have to make the eight or Cleary is goneski? Has anyone seen or heard anything?
