The New Zealand Warriors will be on guard against clocking
off when they kick off the National Rugby League playoffs
against bogey opposition in Queensland tomorrow night.
The Warriors are up against Gold Coast, to whom they have
lost five times in a row since doing the double over them in
the Titans' debut season in 2007.
In both their round-robin meetings this year, the Warriors
opened out handy 12-point margins only to go down by six and
eight points respectively.
Coach Ivan Cleary said the way those contests panned out
summed up the strength of the Titans.
"We got out to good leads in both games and they ran us
down," he said.
"They're a very experienced team and they know how to win.
They know how to play for 80 minutes and on both days we
probably didn't."
However, the Warriors' form over the second half of the
season gave them confidence they could cause an upset at
Robina.
A run of of nine wins in 12 matches took them from outside
the top eight to a finish of fifth on the table.
"We know what we have to do to be in with a chance," Cleary
said.
"We just have to do it on the big stage."
Casting a cloud over Gold Coast's preparations have been
injury concerns.
Fullback Preston Campbell was ruled out today with a
hamstring complaint, while decisions will be made tomorrow
morning on influential skipper Scott Prince (shoulder),
fellow playmaker Mat Rogers (hip), centre Steve Michaels
(shoulder), and forwards Ashley Harrison (broken nose), Brad
Meyers (ribs) and Luke Bailey (hand).
But the Titans remain firm favourites with the bookmakers to
do the business in front of their home fans and Cleary was
happy for his players to be rated as outsiders.
"We probably do go in as pretty strong underdogs, if that's
an oxymoron, but that's fair enough -- they've been really
good over the last few weeks."
Cleary believed the Titans' experience of 12 months ago, when
they lost both their playoff matches, the first of which was
at home, could also be a factor.
"They didn't win one last year so they will be keen to fix
that up, but they might also be thinking they wouldn't want
to go through another loss again," he said.
"It's a bit of pressure for them. We'll just try to sneak
into town and make them beat us."
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