League: Warriors' fight starts now - Mannering

Warriors captain Simon Mannering carries the ball against the Canberra Raiders.
Warriors captain Simon Mannering carries the ball against the Canberra Raiders.
Simon Mannering has declared the Warriors' season starts now as they look to bounce back from their Roosters hiding.

Manly's visit to Mt Smart tomorrow is the first of three consecutive home games the Warriors face in the final run in to end of the season.

Mannering said the 24-0 defeat to the Roosters was a good wake-up call and a perfect reminder of the standards the Warriors must achieve if they want to reach the latter stages of the finals.

"We've got to make something of it because you definitely learn more from your losses than a win," he said.

"It was a really disappointing result at the weekend. We made far too many errors and we put too much pressure on ourselves.

"It was just one of those days. We didn't do ourselves any favours and we didn't manage to build any pressure.

"We've got a very important part of the year coming up so it doesn't really matter where we sit at the moment. Our season starts now and it's an exciting challenge ahead.

"It compounds when you don't play well with the footy and then your defence usually struggles a bit. They go hand in hand," Mannering said.

"Twenty-four points was far too many at the weekend and we have to tidy that up. We've moved on and we have to because there's more important games coming up."

Three excellent wins over the Titans, Canberra and Melbourne saw them climb up to fourth and with the frenzy over Nathan Friend's extraordinary backflip pass, Shaun Johnson's red-hot form and the squad coping so well with some key injuries, optimism and excitement levels went through the roof.

The Roosters brought the Warriors back down to earth with a bump but it could prove to be a blessing in disguise with the lessons they can learn from the loss.

Head coach Andrew McFadden said: "There are certainly some areas that we weren't as good at on the weekend. The opposition, credit to them, they threw a few things at us that maybe we weren't prepared for. We'll definitely be better prepared for that next time.

"The halves have already spoken about that and we can certainly make some small manipulations for this week," McFadden said.

Manu Vatuvei and Ryan Hoffman will not feature this weekend but their return is getting nearer and Konrad Hurrell should be back in NRL contention after he serves a one-match suspension this weekend.

McFadden is biding his time with the injured players as the scrap for places in the final eight nears its denouement.

The Warriors' next three games - all in New Zealand - are against sides now below them on the ladder as they face the Sharks and the Dragons in the next few weeks - with the Dragons game in Wellington on August 8.

Their record against teams beneath them has been impressive throughout 2015 but they've consistently struggled to knock teams above them off their perch.

McFadden added: "The weekend's game gave us a little reminder that we can't look too far ahead. We've really got to stay week to week.

"It's a long way to go but it's just seven games to go and it's still a very congested table. It starts with Manly this weekend."

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