Te Maire Martin is taken off due to injury during the NRL Round 6 match between the Newcastle Knights and the New Zealand Warriors at McDonald Jones Stadium in Newcastle. Photo: Photosport
The Warriors fear they could be without Te Maire Martin for a lengthy period after the playmaker suffered a leg injury during their 34-24 NRL loss to the Newcastle Knights.
Coach Andrew Webster said Martin will undergo a scan to verify the status of the injury which medical staff say could be a a fractured fibula.
"We don't know. He'll go for a scan, but I don't know," Webster said.
"He can kind of put weight on it, but he was struggling to and I think he knew something was wrong straight away.
"The physio didn't muck around he said 'that's it'. You don't want to lose your six, you would have kept him out there if you could. But we don't know yet, it's the lower part of his leg, on the outside."
The injury came via a try-saving tackle from Knights five-eighth Phoenix Crossland.
Crossland was not penalised on field, but there were some suggestions of a hip-drop tackle as he swung around the playmaker in the tackle and contacted the back of Martin's legs.
Martin's absence would leave the Warriors thin in the halves after halfback Luke Metcalf suffered a hamstring injury earlier in the season and is expected to be out for several more weeks at least.
Hooker Wayde Egan will this Saturday's game against North Queensland in Auckland after failing an HIA assessment.
Webster lamented another slow start to a game as they suffered just their second loss from six matches while Newcastle climbed into the top eight for the first time in more than a year.
"I think with our starts there's a bit more to them," Webster said.
"We're just piggybacking them [Knights] out of trouble, we're giving three or four yardage penalties away and we've got to dig in a bit and turn them away early. Just get some confidence from our defence.
"I feel like it's not from a lack of trying, it's the complete opposite. It's just discipline and probably not thinking, because they're so keen.
"When you're piggybacking them out of trouble, it's often because you're going early.
"We've got to be smarter. There's still a long way to go, it's a marathon not a sprint."
Up 22-6 at half-time, the Knights looked at risk of becoming the second team to fall victim to a Warriors comeback in as many weeks when the visitors got the score back to 22-18.
But a costly Marcelo Montoya error coming out of his own end killed off the visitors' momentum, before Kurt Mann regained control of the match with a try in the next set.
The result could have come at a cost though, with Knights captain Jayden Brailey suffering a meniscus injury on the same knee in which he ruptured his ACL during 2020.
Among the favourites for the wooden spoon at the start of the season, the Knights are now in a finals-playing position for the first time since round four last year.
Once again they did it off the back of winger Dominic Young, who scored their first try when he carried Montoya over the line and played a crucial role in their second.
After he marked a cross-field kick, he sprinted to take a 20-metre tap and put Lachlan Miller into space, before Greg Marzhew scored on the other wing on the next play.
Young was dropped only a fortnight ago, but since his return last week the athletic winger has scored four tries against Manly before starring against the Warriors.
The Knights also went in through Tyson Frizell and Crossland via kicks before half-time and looked home at 22-6.
But the Warriors were valiant, as they threatened to repeat their comeback from 20-0 down against Cronulla last week.
Shaun Johnson was again brilliant down the right edge, putting Adam Pompey over for two tries.
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad also impressed at fullback, as he and Johnson combined to help put Edward Kosi over to narrow the margin to four points with 23 minutes to play.
The Warriors crossed once more through Jackson Ford after Mann's match-sealing try, but ultimately there was too much to do, and the Auckland-based side's hopes of drawing level with ladder-leaders Brisbane were extinguished.
In Sunday's earlier match, Gold Coast scores a late converted try to pip St George Illawarra 20-18 in Robina.
- RNZ