Tevaga not jazzed up by record-breaking performance

Jazz Tevaga is hard to please - he broke the NRL record for most combined tackles and runs in a game while also setting a new benchmark for tackles in a game in 2019.

But it didn't impress the Warriors lock much.

Tevaga, who has extended his contract with the Warriors until the end of the 2021 season, broke Shaun Fensom's record for the most runs and tackles in a match with 94 from 72 tackles and 22 runs in last Saturday's 18-18 draw with the Broncos.

Fensom tallied 91 from 75 tackles and 16 runs for Canberra in round 11 of 2011.

Tevaga's total of 72 tackles was also the most recorded in a game this year.

Warriors skipper Roger Tuivasa-Sheck also broke the record for most running metres in a game against Brisbane with 367, surpassing Roosters great Anthony Minichiello's previous mark of 364.

"Stats don't really matter unless you win," Tevaga told NRL.com.

"I didn't really care about it. After making all those tackles it actually felt like I had been hit by a bus, mate.

"It was a tough game and I didn't realise how many tackles I had made until after the game.

"We shouldn't have been in that position of going to golden point. I thought we were all over them in that first half and it was pretty much the story of our season, coming out slow in the second half and letting teams back in.

"A draw to us last week felt like a loss. It hurts knowing we put that much effort into a game and couldn't come away with the chocolates."

Warriors coach Stephen Kearney says his side's ability to stay in the fight gives him reason to feel confident leading into their run home, but concedes it will mean nothing if they can't turn it into wins over the next two months.

Starting with Friday's clash with Cronulla in Wellington, the 12th-placed Warriors begin a tough run home in which all eight of their remaining games are against teams ranked above them on the Telstra Premiership ladder.

While they have lost nine of 15 games this season, five of them have been by less than eight points, with Kearney this week emphasising just how close his team have been to picking up victories in a number of eventual losses.

"There's five games that we have lost over the last 12 weeks or so and the collective difference in those games is [3.8] points," Kearney said.

"We are putting ourselves in position by a great deal of effort and working really hard, we have just lacked a bit of polish and execution to finish those games off.

"I reckon the last 6-8 weeks the boys have put themselves in a position to get the right result in most of those games.

"That's the competition, we have to be better [at winning those games]. What we've got ahead of us, they're all going to be tough games against teams that are above us."

Kearney said Tuivasa-Sheck's achievement would have been inconceivable when the coach was playing in the 1990s and early 2000s, and compared the strides made in the athletic development of players to those in the technology sector over the past two decades.

"It was a Nokia phone back then, they are a lot better now when you have got the iPhone that's got everything on there that you can think of," he said.

"It's always going to improve, it's always going to get better, and obviously Roger is a pretty special talent. That [record] will continue to improve."