Townsend is not to blame, says Warriors’ Brown

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Warriors coach NRL Nathan Brown declined to blame rookie Chad Townsend for his side’s late surrender as St George-Illawarra claimed a golden point victory in their clash on Friday night.

The Warriors were leading 18-10 with six minutes left at Central Coast Stadium when Townsend, in his first game since his mid-season change from Cronulla, oddly attempted a field goal.

The ball is dead, with the Dragons using a set of seven tackles to score through Jack Bird and gain momentum before a basket from Corey Norman seals the deal.

Brown revealed after the game that Townsend believes his squad is only up six.

It was a difficult night for the half-back who injured his shoulder in a big tackle from Tariq Sims in the second minute.

Brown has said Townsend needs half-time treatment to continue, putting him in danger of missing the next round clash against his former club.

“It’s not great… he had a lot of needles at halftime to get him to finish the game and he did a really good job getting through the game and hitting well for us,” said Brown.

“He was really instrumental in getting us to this point in the game.”

The coach felt that there were many factors other than Townsend that led to the shock loss.

“He’s a good, experienced player and we saw why we brought him here in the first 70 minutes,” he said.

“We played one of our most controlled games and kicked the ball better and he released Sean Sullivan as a young half to have less pressure on him.”

He said there was an unwanted tendency with his team to lose a game after being in a winning position.

“We found ourselves in a situation that we have found ourselves in a number of times this season when we were in a strong position and it was not fluke,” said Brown.

“All we can do is continue to practice training situations and continue to work hard to better manage those parts of the game.”

Meanwhile, Warriors lock Tohu Harris suffered a blow to the head and also injured his shoulder and second rower Eli Katoa limped out.

For the Dragons, Belin’s Jack lock was placed twice on report – for a cannonball tackle then a lift tackle.

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