Point Blank Range

NRL: Warriors' dream of top four finish fades

Broncos 21
Warriors 20

Saturday night's dramatic one-point loss to the Broncos has put a sizeable dent in the Warriors' chances of a top four NRL finish.

While they remain an outside chance of sneaking into the top four and earning home advantage for the opening week of the finals, their best chance to do so may well have just passed them by.

Had they won on Saturday night they would have been just two points adrift of the Broncos and Cowboys and one point behind the free-falling Dragons - essentially right in the thick of a four-way battle for third and fourth.

Instead the late Peter Wallace field goal that ended their four-match winning run has dropped the Warriors four points off the top-four pace.

It now appears they will scrap with the Tigers, Dragons and Saturday night's foe Newcastle Knights for the bottom four finals places over the last weeks of the regular season.

Having dispatched the hapless Raiders 40-8 yesterday and put 50 points past Gold Coast a week earlier, the Knights will head to Auckland in sparkling form.

Yesterday's result, coupled with the Tigers' Friday night victory over the Dragons, leaves the Warriors, Knights and Tigers level on 26 points.

The Warriors head the bunch on points differential, while all three clubs have a four-point buffer over the ninth-placed Bulldogs.

Two wonder tries - one a brilliant solo effort from Shaun Johnson and the other created by a James Maloney chip and regather and finished explosively by Kevin Locke - weren't enough to see the Warriors past the determined Broncos.

After coming back strongly through a Shaun Berrigan try and a Maloney penalty to tie the game with 10 minutes remaining, the Warriors had their chances to pull off what would have been a fine victory.

Instead they succumbed to some familiar late-game failings.

Maloney missed a field-goal attempt from a handy position with five minutes remaining, while Johnson saw a booming, angled 40m effort drop just under the crossbar.

Wallace showed how it was done with a composed strike from point-blank range with under two minutes remaining.

Even then the Warriors had a chance to send the match to golden point, however they bungled it badly, with the ball ending up in prop Russell Packer's hands, forcing Maloney into a rushed final field goal attempt that drifted harmlessly wide of the posts.

Darren Lockyer's record-tying 349th match was a mixed affair.

Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point-blank range | Wall Face

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has come a long way since Jan. 8—the day she was shot in the head by Jared Loughner at an Arizona supermarket where she was speaking. 

Dr. Raj Narayan, chariman of the Department of Neurosurgery at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., told FoxNews.com

that although her ability to return to Congress is still unknown, it is a definite possibility.

Early on, even after her initial surgeries, Giffords started to make medical strides, unusual for victims of gunshot wounds to the head.

Later that month, Giffords underwent surgery to repair the damage to her skull. Doctors put a plastic implant in place to fully cover her brain, according to a statement from TIRR Memorial.

On June 15, Giffords was released from the rehabilitation hospital, indicating she had made enough progress to move back into her League City, Ariz., home with her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. However, the congresswoman does receive 24-hour help from a home care assistant, and she still participates in speech, music , physical and occupational therapy.

Narayan said this type of therapy is typical for someone with Giffords’ condition.

Then after that it is usually a lot more focused therapy such as speech therapy or physical or occupational for a particular weakness or function,” he said.

According to Giffords’ doctors, she still struggles to speak and walk. “The recovery is most rapid in the first few months, then the rate of recovery tends to slow down—which can make patients distraught,” he said.

Narayan said Giffords was fortunate with the bullet’s trajectory—a few degrees’ difference and it would’ve ended her life, or given her a more severe injury.

In the long run, Narayan said Giffords’ just needs to focus on recovery, and only time will tell how much of her previous lifestyle she can get back.

Rep Gabriele Giffords , bright eyes peering out from behind blue wire-framed glasses, looks radiant in a recently released Facebook photo. But experts say her half-tilt smile suggests her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head will be complex.

At point blank range

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