📰 Warriors sweat on injury to James-Fisher Harris

By Ben Francis

The Warriors’ 42-14 demolition at the hands of the Melbourne Storm has come at a huge cost following a pectoral injury to influential co-captain James Fisher-Harris.

Fisher-Harris sustained the injury while trying to tackle Xavier Coates in the 11th minute and was immediately taken off the field. He was later seen with ice on his left pec.

Warriors coach Andrew Webster confirmed the prop will undergo scans when the team returns to Auckland. A minor strain would only require a couple of weeks to get over, but a rupture would likely require surgery and a lengthy stint on the sidelines.

Losing their marque off-season signing would be a huge blow for the Warriors’ top eight hopes.

On top of Fisher-Harris’ injury, fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad came off for a head injury assessment after a heavy landing early in the second half and didn’t return to play.

Webster described Nicoll-Klokstad as “groggy” in his post-match press conference, which will put him in doubt for Saturday’s home clash against the Brisbane Broncos.

Overall, it was a tough afternoon for the Warriors, who had high hopes heading into the match that they would snap their 16-game, nearly 10 year losing streak to the Storm.

But after Fisher-Harris left the field, followed by Jackson Ford getting sin-binned, things rapidly went downhill as five tries in 16 minutes saw the Warriors trailing 36-0 after 30 minutes.

“We missed our jobs a lot at the start,” said Webster. “There were big momentum swings, and we didn’t handle them well at all.

“As a result, we didn’t tackle like we normally do. We didn’t get to play our game on the back of poor defence. We are trying so hard, but it wasn’t good.

“We came here confident if we played our best footy, we’d get a result, that’s the frustrating bit.”

The Warriors improved in the second half, outscoring the Storm 14-6, with tries to Leka Halasima, Rocco Berry and Luke Metcalf.

Halasima and Demitric Vaimauga had their biggest involvements of the season to date – playing 37 and 43 minutes respectively - and both provided much-needed spark in the second half.

Fellow co-captain Mitch Barnett says the starters, including himself, need to be better to allow the likes of Halasima and Vaimauga to make an even bigger impact off the bench.

“I think our younger boys showed us how to tackle properly,” said Barnett.

“Our senior players and starters need to set the tone for them. I put lots of onus on myself.

“Blokes were trying but missing their job. Against those good sides when you’re fatiguing yourself with errors and poor tackling, and burning energy everywhere, it’s hard to stem that flow.”

The loss sees the Warriors end the round in sixth place, with a 3-2 record.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission