A stunning 78th-minute try from Krisnan Inu sealed a remarkable 22-20 win for the Warriors over Wests Tigers in Friday's NRL semi-final at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Inu somehow managed to lurch his hands over the line after Shaun Johnson's bomb bounced off Lote Tuqiri and the former Parramatta centre got the ball down while lying on the ground in front of the despairing Tim Moltzen at the second attempt.

The Warriors set up a clash with minor premiers Melbourne in next week's preliminary final, with a berth in the grand final at stake.

The result ended a run of nine consecutive wins for the Tigers, who led for the whole game until Inu struck, and were comfortably in control at halftime, leading 18-6.

NSW prop Keith Galloway opened the scoring on the 15-minute mark for the joint-venture, with his first try of the season, barging over a helpless Kevin Locke as he made his way to the line from close range.

Benji Marshall, who was irresistible in the opening 25 minutes, then doubled his side's lead, latching onto a quick pass from Robbie Farah and side-stepping Lewis Brown and Ukuma Ta'ai to touch down, before kicking his second conversion of the game.

However, the Tigers' flawless start received a jolt against the run of play when Locke took advantage of the hosts' first handling error of the game from Matt Groat to leave four players trailing in his wake.

The young fullback then produced an outrageous flick pass into the path of James Maloney, who raced under the posts to score in what was the Warriors' first meaningful attack of the game.

The visitors then enjoyed their best spell of the half, but with the ball just five metres short of the Tigers line, Johnson lost possession and Blake Ayshford broke downfield.

Robert Lui then kept the ball alive superbly and skipper Farah darted over to score five minutes before halftime.

The Warriors started the second half well, with Feleti Mateo bulldozing his way to the line 10 minutes after the interval, after the outstanding Johnson fooled the Tigers with an audacious disguised pass into the hands of the big backrower.

Maloney's conversion closed the gap to six points, only for Marshall to extend his side's advantage in the 56th minute with a close-range penalty.

However, Ivan Cleary's side refused to back down and after forcing a penalty deep in their own half, a Maloney kick found touch 20 metres from the Tigers' line.

From the resulting tap, Maloney darted into space and released Lance Hohaia who dived over from dummy-half to score his eighth try of the season.

Maloney's conversion closed the gap to two points and with the Tigers desperately pressing for a winning score the Warriors regained possession and moved menacingly towards the Tigers line.

Johnson's high bomb caused havoc in the in-goal area, and Inu stunned the Tigers and most of the 27,109 crowd to set up a clash with the Storm for a place in the grand final.

Warriors coach Ivan Cleary paid tribute to his side's battling qualities as they bounced back from last week's 40-10 hammering by Brisbane in superb fashion.

However Cleary, who will coach Penrith next season, was left fuming at a 9-4 penalty count against his team and slammed the decision to let Shayne Hayne and Jared Maxwell referee his side for the second successive week.

"The boys were able to turn around the things we needed to at halftime and that is a pretty good quality and I guess if you keep coming sometimes you can jag the wins," Cleary said.

"The last two weeks we have had a 7-0 penalty count against us in the first half from the same two referees.

"It was 9-4 overall tonight which is horrendously lop-sided in a semi-final, there were definitely some calls tonight they will be disappointed with when they look back."

Despite the dramatic win, Cleary believes the Rugby World Cup will see his players slip under the radar when they return home to Auckland, and joked that he is not expecting too much attention from the local media.

"The Rugby World Cup is pretty big news there at the moment, but what can you do?" he said.

"It is quite an achievement what we have done, but I guess Russia will be playing Namibia or something."

Tigers coach Tim Sheens was too devastated to go into detail about the decision to award the last-gasp try after the referees did not call held after Moltzen made the initial challenge on Inu, allowing him to score at the second attempt.

"What is done is done ... they ruled on it and our season is over, I just want to thank my boys and the club for all their effort and to Toddy Payten, who is retiring, for a great career," Sheens said.

"I am not really fussed talking about the game, there is no use, there is no next week, just next year."

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