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NZPA / David Rowland
"Distracted" Warriors anger Cleary
Coach Ivan Cleary took aim at his error-ridden New Zealand Warriors and suggested they were distracted by next Friday's test match after their tense 11-12 National Rugby League (NRL) defeat to St George-Illawarra at Wollongong today.
A fuming Cleary could barely utter the words after his side continued their 13-year winning drought in Wollongong - despite a tough defensive effort and a host of scoring chances against the in-form Dragons.
The worst of those was Kiwis centre Jerome Ropati's dropped ball from a Simon Mannering pass with the line open in the 67th minute and the Warriors 11-8 up.
"Jerome was way off his game today. We've had a lot of trouble in this game leading up to the Anzac test and it happened again this week," Cleary said.
"I'm not sure the scheduling's great, having so many guys in the test team playing on Sunday before a Friday game."
Asked if the Warriors would benefit from the bye in the week leading up to the test rather than next weekend, Cleary said: "We've just got to get some guys who can concentrate properly.
"History's showed we struggle in this game. Some of these guys were clearly off their game a bit today."
The Warriors had five Kiwis test players in their side.
Playing their third nailbiter in as many weeks, they had a final chance to send it to golden point but halfback Stacey Jones fumbled the ball as he set for a field goal, 1min 40sec from fulltime.
Replays suggested Dragons forward Ben Creagh, who scored the matchwinning try in the 71st minute, was well offside but Cleary had few issues.
"I don't know if he was offside or not, but it shouldn't have come down to that."
