NZ Warriors coach Nathan Brown has bemoaned another lacklustre offensive display from his side, after falling to a 13-12 loss to the Manly Sea Eagles on Friday.
Both teams struggled to find the chalk at Central Coast Stadium, before the stalemate was broken with just seconds remaining by a Daly Cherry-Evans dagger field goal to send the Warriors to their knees and end Manly's winless start to the season.
Whie Brown had no complaints with his team's gutsy defensive display, he pulled no punches when reflecting on their toothless attack.
The Kiwi side had several chances to clinch the match through the final quarter, but wave after wave of redzone salvos ended in disorganised miscues.
"Daly rarely misses them when he gets the opportunity but the game probably shouldn't have got to that stage," Brown said post-match.
"I thought our effort was first-class defensively. They got two tries from kicks out of their two tries, so we obviously worked really hard when we didn't have the ball.
"With the ball, we were just horrible. We just didn't get anywhere near where we needed to get to.
"Roger [Tuivasa-Sheck] has obviously been doing some good stuff for us. It didn't help Roger get in the right positions because we just got all our attack wrong."
Brown stopped short of pointing his finger at anyone in particular, but highlighted the lack of direction shown by "players in key positions", refusing to use their dire injury situation as an excuse.
"We had a perfect opportunity to get ourselves in a position to kick a field goal and we did some things that, when the boys have a look at, it they won't like what they see," he added.
Confirmation of Addin Fonua-Blake's four-month absence has only compounded their injury woes, with the likes of Euan Aitken and Chanel Harris-Tavita already facing extended stints on the sideline.
"If Addin did play tonight, it wouldn't have changed the way we went about our offence," Brown said.
"We started off reasonably well but we really let ourselves down there."
The 11th-placed Warriors will try to snap their two-game skid against St George Illawarra Dragons next Sunday.
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