Warriors’ Nathan Brown has no doubt some players gave up in record loss to Storm

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Nathan Brown says some of his players weren’t at the races after the team picked up a couple of injuries.

Warriors coach Nathan Brown has accused some of his players of giving up in the embarrassing 70-10 loss to the Melbourne Storm on Monday night.

It was the worst defeat in the club’s history and during the second half the Storm were able to score at will, with the Warriors conceding 54 points in the final 33 minutes.

Speaking in the press conference afterwards, Brown didn’t hold back in expressing how disappointed he was with some players.

When asked if he thought some gave up, Brown said that’s what it looked like to him.

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“Some people did yes, I’ve no doubt about that at all,” Brown said.

“I’ve been in this game for a long time and it’s disappointing to actually sit here and say that, but some people looked for the easiest way out they could and that’s sad.

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Dallin Watene-Zelezniak was knocked out cold after a sickening collision with Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s knee.

“That’s not a reflection of all the players, we had players who worked extremely hard and put themselves on the line, but when you’re playing against a team that’s that good and you don’t have the ball, the best players can look not good.

“Sometimes fatigue causes people to make bad decisions, but we had some people that made bad decisions, not so much because of fatigue and that’s what is disappointing.”

At half time, it didn’t looked like a 60-point loss was on the cards. The Warriors were actually playing the better footy, but went in down 16-10 because of three dreadful errors which went for tries, two by Edward Kosi and one from Shaun Johnson.

“For the first 50 minutes I don’t think there was anything in the game,” Brown said.

“We gave them a couple of length of the field tries from intercepts and we had some blokes who weren’t performing at their bests, but we were competing well.

“Then we picked up a couple of injuries and with some adversity we had some players that if truth be told, weren’t at the races after that.

“We had some players who are good players, who had to keep playing under fatigue, not having the ball made the game extremely difficult against a good side.”

The Warriors picked up two serious injuries in the second half, which did seem to rattle some players. Josh Curran badly twisted his knee, while Dallin Watene-Zelezniak was knocked out when his face collided with Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s knee.

But Brown insisted these injuries shouldn’t be to blame for what happened in the second half.

“The way we performed in the last 30 minutes, the injuries are not an excuse,” he said.

“We were right in that contest, we were competing well and there wasn’t a great deal in the game.

“Then when we picked up a couple of injuries, we certainly didn’t respond well.

“We had some players who were a bit below their best at that stage and when it got harder and harder, thought the easiest option was to look for the easiest option and unfortunately for a lot of our middle forwards, who worked really hard and did a great job for us, not having the ball under fatigue made it extremely difficult at the end of the game.”

As for Watene-Zelezniak and Curran, they both could be out for a while.

“Dallin is up and walking, which is positive,” Brown said.

“But he’s obviously had a bad concussion, so how long he’s out for I couldn’t tell you. Josh has got an MCL.”

Brown said he has ideas about how to fix what went wrong, but wasn’t willing to make them public, but he did say it was surprising to see how badly the team played.

“If you look at our results this year and the way we’ve performed, I think we’d all agree that,” he said.

“Last week against the Roosters we defended nearly 80 tackles inside our 20 and against the Tigers when we had 12 men at the end of the game and our own share of injuries, the boys did what they did.

“To see tonight, with some people it certainly was a surprise, but it’s happened and I feel for a lot of the boys who put the effort in, as opposed to some blokes who were off their game a touch and then made some poor choices. It’s disappointing, it’s hard.”