Auckland, New Zealand, August 25, 2009 - Vodafone Warriors captain Steve Price will miss the club's last two games of the season while second rower Simon Mannering has been ruled out of Sunday's 25th-round NRL encounter with the Bulldogs at ANZ Stadium.

Price had just returned to the side from a three-match injury lay-off for last week's 34-20 win over Canberra. But the 35-year-old 313-game veteran said today he will have eye surgery on Friday after a specialist discovered he had a detached retina, putting him out of the clash against his former club the Bulldogs as well as the season finale at home against Melbourne on September 5.

Mannering, who turns 23 on Friday, was forced off the field with a knee injury after 50 minutes of last Sunday's game - his 99th NRL career appearance - so denying him the chance this weekend to become the 16th player to appear in 100 NRL matches for the Vodafone Warriors.

"Simon's injury doesn't seem too bad and we're hopeful he'll be right against the Storm for his 100th match," said coach Ivan Cleary, who himself has his 100th game as the club's head coach on Sunday since stepping into the role for the 2006 season.

Mannering's rare injury break stops his exceptional run of consecutive appearances for the club, ending it at 92 (Stacey Jones has the club record at 100 matches straight from 1995-199). Mannering's sequence ironically began against the Bulldogs at Mount Smart Stadium on April 30, 2006.

Since Price joined the Vodafone Warriors he has missed several games against his old Bulldogs club through State of Origin commitments or injury. This time he's denied the chance of being involved in what has been promoted as the Bulldogs' farewell to their goal-kicking star Hazem El Masri, who is retiring at the end of the season. With Price out, Evarn Tuimavave returns to the starting line-up at prop, Micheal Luck takes over the captaincy again and Russell Packer rejoins the bench after turning out for Vodafone Junior Warriors last Sunday.

Lewis Brown moves into the starting combination as Mannering's second row replacement with Ben Matulino added to the bench after playing NYC football the last two weeks. Luck could go through the 1000 tackles barrier on Sunday despite his lowest defensive workload of the season against the Raiders. Required to make "only" 32 tackles last Sunday he now has 969 tackles, already ahead of his competition-topping totals in both 2007 and 2008.