Warriors suffer late first half lapse in Tigers loss
- 9 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Wests Tigers put a halt on the Warriors run of wins in the 2026 NRL season with a resounding 32-14 victory at Go Media Stadium.
The Warriors' had literally smashed the Rosters and Raiders in Auckland and then did the same to the Knights away but it was not their night against the Tigers as they lacked the ability to complete tries.
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The home side opened the scoring through Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad after nine minutes in a tight space in the corner.
Next up Jacob Laban burst through two flimsy tackles including to score close to the posts with Tanah Boyd kicking the goal and taking the score to 10-0.
Adam Pompey was then binned after tackling Faaletino Tavana to the ground unnecessarily and will spend the next 10 minutes in the sin bin slowing the home sides momentum.
In his first game back from injury last year Luke Metcalf got the Warriors' out of the trouble by grabbing a short Tigers pass and racing up to the 30 metres.
The Tigers get on the scoreboard through Tavana who took a pass from Adam Doueihi for the score to be 10-4 for the home side with under 10 minutes until the break.
A couple of minutes later they were in again after a high kick from Madden bounces off the head of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck via Tavana in the air to then pass to Kai Pearce-Paul for the try which is converted and the score ticks over to 10-10
The horror finish to the first half continued for the Warriors' as the Tigers storm into the lead as Royce Hunt barges over. The try is converted by the Tigers lead 16-10 at the break.
The Warriors started the half the better of the two sides with a number of scoring opportunities including Dallin Watene-Zelezniak getting airborne over the line but spilling the ball in the tackle
It was Doueihi who set up their fourth try cutting through the defence and eventually passing to Jahream Bula to finish off the try with 20 minutes remaining for a 22-10 lead.
Nicoll-Klokstad decided the game wasn’t over with a slicing run to score with just over 10 minutes remaining, however the kick from Boyd went astray and the Warriors stayed just out of reach of the visitors at 14-22 down.
The Tigers crossed again as Doueihi found space and passed to Luke Laulilii who then flicked on to Madden with the score out to 28- 14. And to add more salt to the Warriors' woes Sunia Turuva crossed in the last minute to take the score out to 32-14 a
