Nz Call On Warriors Within To Beat Dogs

Illawarra Mercury

Monday March 24, 2003

COACH Daniel Anderson admitted to being ``drained totally" after seeing the New Zealand Warriors survive a heart-stopping finish to beat the Bulldogs 24-20 in their National Rugby League match in Auckland yesterday.

The big tackles, intensity and uncertainty of the closing stages had the 16,229 crowd at Ericsson Stadium at full throttle.

``I'm worn out, just drained totally," Anderson said.

``We won and lost the game about 30 times."

The Warriors ended up scoring five tries to three, with five-eighth Lance Hohaia grabbing two tries to extend a Bulldogs' lack of success at Ericsson Stadium that dates back to 1997.

But Bulldogs captain Steve Price was happy his team's intensity was there this week after a below-par opening round win over Souths.

``We played better than we did last week - I thought intensity was a lot higher," says Price.

``We knew we had to step it up a bit, we talked about it at training all week and that's what we did. But it wasn't quite enough."

The Dogs recovered well from an early 8-0 deficit to move to 14-8, before Warriors centre John Carlaw intercepted and ran for 80m.

Although hauled down, Awen Guttenbeil scored moments later, the home side took the lead on the stroke of half-time through Lance Hohaia, then Hohaia grabbed a second three minutes after the break as the Warriors put on a 16-point blitz in eight minutes.

Price said that after Utai narrowed the gap the Dogs could have won it in the final five minutes.

``They gave us enough opportunities to win it, we just didn't take them," he said.

Anderson was relieved to have picked up his first two points of the season, which probably saved him from a grilling at the press conference about the lack of a reliable goal kicker.

While Hazem El Masri bagged four from four for the visitors, Stacey Jones missed the first two, and Lance Hohaia the third before PJ Marsh took over to convert two relatively easy goals.

``It would have been a big concern if we didn't get the two points. I'll wear it now, I know there's work to be done," he said.

Last week his team wilted in the final quarter to allow the Knights victory. There was to be no repeat against the Bulldogs.

``We copped bit of hiding from on-line defence (against the Knights) and spoke about it all week. We showed a fair amount of pride, they had five sets in a row before they got a try," he said.