With the game in the balance, the veteran halfback showed all his class to step through a tiring Bulldogs defence to score under the posts, although it looked like Johnson had benefitted from an obstruction by Addin Fonua-Blake on Reed Mahoney.

However, the try call stood to give the home side a third win in their first four games this season.

Early discipline problems cost the Warriors.

The visitors struck within the first three minutes, a penalty giving the Bulldogs good field position for Jake Averillo to bust out of a weak tackle attempt by Marcelo Montoya and offload for Jacob Kiraz to walk over in the corner.

Another penalty saw Matt Burton land a goal to make the score 8-0 to the Bulldogs before a lot of the 19,000-strong crowd had a chance to take their seats.

The Warriors continued to be their own worst enemies when they had a turn with possession, blowing several good opportunities with poor option taking inside the Bulldogs' 20.

A well taken Mahoney 40/20 should have provided the platform for the Bulldogs to increase their lead, but a three-on-one overlap created off the ensuing set was foiled by a well taken intercept by Ed Kosi.

After all their graft, it was ironic that the Warriors got on the board with a soft try after 27 minutes.

Second-year centre Viliami Vailea simply ran onto a short ball from Shaun Johnson off an attacking scrum, busting through some weak Bulldogs defence to score.

The rest of the half was a grind as the Bulldogs' set completion rate fell off and the Warriors simply couldn't make anything of their visits into opposition territory.

It was an unlucky day for Fa'amanu Brown, succumbing to an elbow dislocation and reducing the Bulldogs to 16.

But it was the Warriors who suffered the next dose of bad luck.

Vailea was denied his second try and off the ensuing scrum enough space was created for Josh Addo-Carr to turn the corner and run 90 metres downfield to score under the posts.

Addo-Carr went from hero to zero, an ill-advised pass in his own in-goal should have resulted in a try to Warriors second-rower Jackson Ford, then the resulting period of pressure leading to Montoya crossing in the corner to close the gap up to 14-10.

After Johnson's try, the Warriors' mettle was tested with a series of goal-line sets by the Bulldogs, however the defence held firm to give them a hard-fough win.

Australian Associated Press