Concentration has been the key word aired this week in the wake of the One New Zealand Warriors’ disappointing 22-26 loss to the Eels in their final regular season home game last Friday night.
Immediately after the match head coach Andrew Webster rued lapses in concentration that aided Parramatta’s cause and both he and fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad mentioned the word again as the Warriors headed to Sydney for tomorrow night’s all-important clash against Manly Warringah.
“We have to concentrate for longer. We have to be more consistent with what we do,” he said.
“We still looked very good (against Eels). We kicked from our end four times last week while Parramatta kicked from their end 18 times. We dominated field position but we had concentration lapses.”
As he prepares for his 134th career appearance, the 30-year-old Nicoll-Klokstad also bemoaned instances that let the Warriors down.
“It’s little moments and individually we just have to be better,” he said.
Match: Sea Eagles v Warriors
Round 27 -
home Team
Sea Eagles
10th Position
away Team
Warriors
6th Position
Venue: 4 Pines Park, Sydney
“We’ve been focusing on getting improvements. Last week we fell short of our standards in some areas of the game and we want to rectify that this week against Manly.
“We do a better job of that looking after those things and it’s going to take care of itself.
“It’s belief. We’ve got to believe in what we’ve done to get here, we’ve got to believe in the game we’re playing is the right fit for us which I believe, and we all believe, it is.
“It’s about buying into everything that has got us here – hard work, work ethic, commitment, discipline, connection, camaraderie … all those team-first actions that we want to be known for.
“It’s just buying into that a lot more. We fix up those little concentration areas and we’ll put a full game together.”
While fully aware of the significance of tomorrow night’s contest in terms of the finals picture, Webster has a much narrower focus.
“I definitely know what the ramifications are. I think we all do but I can absolutely promise you we haven’t spoken about that,” he said.
“We made a pact we’re not going to talk about the finals, we’re going to talk about our quest to improve.”
After a three-match stint helping out in the centres, Nicoll-Klokstad has quickly settled back into his groove at fullback.
In the 32-18 win over the Titans he carried the ball a game-high 22 times for 192 metres and 70 post-contact metres (numbers bettered only by Roger Tuiavasa-Sheck).
Then last week he ramped it up to another level with top stats for the night for runs (32), metres (329) and post-contact metres (113).
“It’s part of my job, chiming in where I feel I need to chime in (doing) and what the team needs from me at that certain moment,” he says of his workload.
Even though his numbers were adversely affected by his time in the centre, Nicoll-Klokstad is still fourth among the NRL’s regular fullbacks for average metres per game (186) behind only Penrith’s Dylan Edwards (226), Canterbury Bankstown’s Connor Tracey (201) and the Roosters’ James Tedesco (194). He leads all fullbacks for the most post-contact metres with 1185.
