WARRIORS players will be offered counselling, and the club's training has been put on hold indefinitely, as the search continues for Sonny Fai, the promising 20-year-old who went missing in treacherous seas off the Auckland coast on Sunday night.

The team will assemble this morning at its training base and home ground at Mt Smart, where players will be briefed on the search as well as the club's short-term football future.

"Our first thoughts are to find Sonny, to get him back to his mother and father," football manager Don Mann said yesterday. "We'll just take it day by day. No doubt, to attempt to train would be extremely tough. At the moment, we'll meet as a team in the morning, bring the squad together and keep talking to our players. We know they'll all deal with it differently, but we'll keep the dialogue open and take it from there."

Chief executive Wayne Scurrah said: "I don't think that [a return to club duties] is something you can put a date on. We'll continue to gauge the feeling of the players as the search for Sonny goes on. But that's not anywhere near the top of our minds. There certainly won't be any pressure from us [to train again]. This puts the football side of things into perspective."

The club, however, has been urged to react quickly to the loss of one of its most promising players, who debuted last season against Parramatta in round two and finished the year with 15 NRL games and five tries. Former Kiwis international and Warriors administrator Dean Lonergan said the players had to use the tragedy to galvanise their season and not let it destroy it.

"The players are going to find it very tough," Lonergan said. "Football will be the last thing on their mind right now but at some stage they are going to have to confront the reality that he won't be there alongside them from now on. It will play with their head and it can potentially make or break them. The guys need to ask themselves what Sonny would want for them from here. He'd want them to go on and succeed."

Hugh McGahan, a former Kiwis international and a club administrator when another 20-year-old, Tai Savea, drowned, said the players would need time to grieve.

"Even though Tai was a junior, it rocked the club," he said. "They'll need time to go through that grieving process for a week or so but then they need to try and put it to the back of their minds. It's not easy, and it's going to take time. But the sooner they get back into it they can set their focus on the job."

Warriors football director John Hart, a former All Blacks coach, spoke with the NRL's chief operating officer, Graham Annesley, yesterday about counselling services to offer the players.

"Everyone's grief-stricken, from the players to sponsors, the fans and the ladies in the office," Scurrah said.