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 in Wollongong yesterday. 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... 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."
The defeat was the Warriors' fourth from eight matches this season to leave them still outside the top-eight, while the Wayne Bennett-coached Dragons racked up their sixth win.
Cleary felt the team may have been flat from their torrid 14-14 extra time draw in Melbourne eight days ago and the resultant travel, but said they should have overcome that.
Price agreed with his coach, that the Warriors blew a certain two competition points.
"The Dragons have set their whole season on defence and when you get chances against them you've got to score," Price said.
"We did enough but basic fundamentals let us down and that's the most disappointing and frustrating part of it, we worked so hard defensively but fell short because we didn't take our chances."
Price had a running battle with referees Ben Cummins and Jason Robinson, who blew 11 first half penalties, but insisted afterwards he had little complaint about the refereeing.
Having confirmed on match day he'd signed for a 17th NRL season in 2010, Price set up the Warriors' opening try with a chargedown of a Jamie Soward kick on his own 15m line.
Mannering raced 70m before being run down by Brett Morris, before Patrick Ah Van scored out wide from the next play.
A Jones field goal gave the Warriors a 7-2 halftime lead but a series of handling errors helped the Dragons get on a roll, and a converted Morris try made it 7-8 with 20 minutes left.
Ropati carried four Dragons defenders over the line to put the Warriors back in front, three minutes later.
Dragons coach Wayne Bennett labelled it a "courageous" win with his side hit by injuries; Kiwi Jeremy Smith (ankle, in doubt for the test), Matt Cooper (hip), Soward (hip), Wendell Sailor (leg cork), and Jarrod Saffy (sternum).
-NZPA