Highlights: Warriors hang on to beat Tigers in first win of season

Credit / nrl.com

The Warriors held on to beat West Tigers 16-12 in Sydney on Friday night, playing "a lot worse" than they did last week against the Titans. But a visibly happier Warriors coach Nathan Brown was not complaining, fortunate to avoid a third straight loss.

"Last week, I thought we played far better and this week we played a lot worse but we got something," Brown said in his post-match press conference.

Brown credited the Warriors' defensive work for the victory, especially in the final quarter after winger Marcelo Montoya was binned for holding down Tigers five-eighth Jock Madden after an 80-metre run.

"We can't fault the boys' defence in the cage in the second half, especially when we were down to 12 men and had a few troops with injuries," he said.

"I don't think anyone would disagree with the last 15 minutes of the game, the way we scrambled for each other was outstanding.

"I'm really proud of the boys there, but we certainly know we need to get more people on a good solid performance if we're going to beat teams."

Brown said the Warriors' performances so far this season have been all over the shop and they are struggling to put in a consistently solid performance.

"We've certainly come up with some disappointing plays in the game - which is quite clear for everyone to see," he said.

"The thing that's probably affected us the most is at the moment we can't put a group of people together that are pretty solid."

"At the moment, we're hitting some real fluctuations in performances."

The Warriors coach said the team needs to use its defensive commitment in the final stages of the game as motivation for further improvement.

"Unfortunately, tonight we had other people this week that did a much better job last week who were not to the standard you need. It's hard to really carry people in the NRL level, it's really difficult," Brown said.

"We need to hopefully learn from the commitment effort - I think that was outstanding."

Warriors captain Addin Fonua-Blake backed this sentiment.

"It's a really good thing to know we finished the game like that," he said.

"I think we can take a lot of confidence out of that moving forward in the competition."

The Warriors are at home to the Brisbane Broncos next Saturday.

Warriors 16 (Euan Aitken, Adam Pompey tries; Reece Walsh 2 cons, 2 pens)
Tigers 12 (James Tamou, Zane Musgrove tries, Luke Brooks 2 cons)
HT: 14-12