The New Zealand Warriors have been decimated by injury yet again, with star prop Addin Fonua-Blake likely to miss significant time on the back of a finger injury.
After playing the entire second half with just 13 players last weekend, the Warriors were reduced again early in their loss to the South Sydney.
While Nathan Brown's side put in a brave performance last weekend despite the injuries against the Penrith Panthers, it wasn't as solid on Saturday at the Sunshine Coast Stadium.
Leaking 11 tries in a 60-22 loss, the Warriors would finish with just 14 players on the park this time around.
Following the loss of Jack Murchie and Eliesa Katoa to head knocks, Addin Fonua-Blake was added to the list with a worrying looking finger injury.
While it's unclear the severity of it at this stage, NRL Physio on Twitter believes it could be season over for Fonua-Blake if the injury is as bad as it looked.
Suspected compound finger fracture (bone pierces skin) for Addin Fonua-Blake. If fracture confirmed usually 4-8 week recovery for adequate bone healing. Best case would be fracture avoided & just compound dislocation, can see a return as quick as 1-3 weeks pic.twitter.com/RsroEEzZcq
— NRL PHYSIO (@nrlphysio) July 24, 2021
With fellow forwards Wayde Egan and Tohu Harris both gone for the year with a shoulder and ACL injury respectively picked up last week, Nathan Brown's team are facing a severe shortage in the forwards.
Both Katoa and Murchie will have to pass concussion protocols to play next weekend, however, a six-day turnaround to their clash with the Tigers will make it incredibly challenging.
While Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Chanel Harris-Tavita and Peta Hiku are due back next week, it won't make life any easier for the Warriors given their problems in the forwards.
The Warriors loss and injury crisis has dropped them to 14th place on the table, six points out of the top eight and with just six weeks to go, Brown concedes the finals may now be beyond them.
"I think that is starting to look beyond us now, if we are being truthful," Brown said.
"I'd like to say it is not but you get to a stage where there's only so many games left and for us we haven't had a win for a while and we lost some more troops today.
"For us it is more about what we did last week. We started to put things in place (against the Panthers) that is going to help us going forward but today I felt we went backwards a little bit.
"We knew coming in today it was going to be a difficult task but I just thought we could have made a better account of ourselves in the early 20 to 30 minutes of the contest."
The Warriors will next play the Wests Tigers on Friday evening at Suncorp Stadium, with the club now sitting on a seven-match losing streak.
