Manu Vatuvei of the Warriors dives over to score against Newcastle.

New Zealand Warriors coach Andrew McFadden said he was satisfied, but not totally, after his team ground out a 24-20 NRL win over the Newcastle Knights in Auckland on Sunday.

The Warriors led throughout the match, and scored five tries to four, but were never able to shut out the Knights who continued to attack the home team's line despite being hampered by injury.

The match, played in cold, wet conditions, in front of a crowd of 13,203 at Mt Smart Stadium, saw an organised effort from the Warriors, but again mistakes and penalties took their toll with the home side conceding eight penalties to the Knights' five.

The Warriors had played just twice in the past month with the representative round and their first bye and McFadden said that could account for some rustiness.

His team would "not be the first to come out of the bye a bit rusty, a bit flat".

The Knights, though, showed great resilience, McFadden said: "The Knights are obviously down on a bit of luck at the moment, but they didn't go away, so credit to them.

"I wouldn't say I was completely satisfied with [the win] but we will take the points. It wasn't very convincing. We just gave up too many easy points."

The Knights suffered an early setback with playmaker Tyrone Roberts leaving the field injured within the first five minutes, leaving former Warriors player Carlos Tuimavave to steer the ship on debut.

For the Warriors Tui Lolohea, playing at centre after the return of Sam Tomkins from a seven-week lay off with a knee injury, had a massive game - running more than 100 metres and busting through two tackles. He also scored his team's opening try.

Tomkins had little impact and McFadden said he expected it would take some time for the England international to get back into the game.

Ryan Hoffman and Jacob Lillyman were backing up after playing in State of Origin on Wednesday night. Hoffman, who played all 80 minutes of Origin and made 109 running metres, hardly looked worse for wear with a number of early bursts.

The Warriors had come into the match sitting seventh on the table with 12 points while the Knights were in 12th following a 31-18 loss to the Brisbane Broncos on Monday.

It was the Warriors who got first points on the board after seven minutes - Shaun Johnson spotted a gap and found Lolohea who scuttled over in the right hand corner to score. Manu Vatuvei had the Warriors over the tryline again five minutes later. By that stage the Warriors were up 10-0.

A mistake by a rusty Tomkins at dummy-half led to a half-chance and a try for the Knights through Dane Gagai after 18 minutes. The visitors had another disallowed minutes and the Warriors made them pay with Ben Matulino was ruled to have wrestled the ball over the try line in a three man tackle to score his second try of the season.

Knights winger Akuila Uate responded when he stretched over in the tackle of Vatuvei to score and put Newcastle within six points of their hosts at halftime.

Solomone Kata made an emphatic statement just minutes into the second half when the Warriors centre ran 30 metres to score under the posts.

Determined play by the Knights saw winger James McManus score but the game was sealed for the Warriors with 12 minutes to go when Jonathan Wright grabbed his fourth try of the season.

Uate grabbed his second score for the Knights with five to go, but it wasn'tquite enough.

The Warriors play the South Sydney Rabbitohs in Perth on Saturday.

Warriors: 24 (T. Lolohea, M. Vatuvei tries, B. Matulino, S.Kata, J. Wright; S. Johnson 2 conversions) Knights: 20 (D. Gagai, A. Uate 2, J. McManus tries; T. Randell, D. Gagai conversion) HT: Warriors 14-8