NZ Warriors coach Nathan Brown accepts the fallout from the departure of Matt Lodge caused the club some "issues" within the playing group.
The side are now without a win in their last five matches, with their forward muscle dealt a major blow with Lodge leaving and Addin Fonua-Blake sidelined with injury.
Last week, it was revealed an argument with owner Mark Robinson was a significant factor in Lodge leaving the club.
Brown, who after Saturday's defeat to the Newcastle Knights took responsibility for the prop's early exit, admits the incident had an impact on the dressing room.
"I'd be lying if I said there weren't some little issues there for a period of time," Brown said,
"We certainly addressed some issues and moved forward."
Brown made it clear the Lodge fall was no excuse for the two defeats since he was granted an immediate release from the club, and insists players have moved on, as they aim to break their losing streak against Manly this weekend.
"The team's been very unified the past two weeks. I don't think it's played a part in us losing the past two weeks.
"Certainly when those things are happening behind the scenes there's no doubt there's bits of trouble going on. Little bits of things that don't certainly help the team.
"Once it got addressed and [Lodge] moved on and we moved on since then, we've made some progress. I don't think it's any reason why we haven't won our past two games, that's for sure."
The Warriors must now set about getting their season back on track, with another day of costly errors costing them dearly against the Knights.
"Some of the errors we've made at different stages you wouldn't expect to see at the level we're at. Catching kick offs, kicking out on the full that sort of stuff.
"Unfortunately, it's not one person doing it or two because you could easily not pick one or two, we're having dips in different parts of the game."
Brown also threw his support behind forward Jazz Tevaga, who gave a passionate post game interview following the Knights defeat.
"Jazz is in career best form. Jazz is a far better player than he was 12 months ago. It wasn't too long ago [he] had some areas of his game with discipline and that sort of stuff which were causing bits of grief in different area of himself," Brown said.
"He's certainly earning the right to challenge people to do the right thing. I don't think [he] is a finger pointer, Jazz is understanding there's people putting in a lot of hard work and a lot of people doing the right thing.
"If we collectively get people doing the right thing we can certainly get the scoreboard to go in our favour."
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