NSW Cup coach Matt Lantry and captain Clint Newton talked to Knights TV after their narrow loss to the Wests Tigers at Hunter Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Lantry, who is in his first year coaching the NSW Cup side, was disappointed with the way the game panned out.
“That was well and truly below our standards, and 46 per cent completion in the second half hurt us,” he explained.
“When you’ve got to do the amount of defence we did, it’s always going to chew up a lot of petrol.”
The Cup side was struck with injuries to Chanel Mata’utia and Nathan Ross during the game, while Danny Levi and Dylan Phythian moved up from NYC to play in key positions.
Lantry considered how the side managed to cling on for most of the game despite these hurdles a big positive.
“At the end of the day, for us to still be in the game late on was a credit to us,” he said.
Newton pinpointed discipline with the ball when asked about what went wrong for the team.
“We’ve just got to get through our sets better,” he said.
“We’re a good side and we can play some footy, but it’s on the back of line breaks and we’ve just got to stay more patient.
“Obviously it was difficult for our blokes with the position changes and we had a disrupted training session yesterday, but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that we need to be better with the ball.”
NSW Cup have a bye next weekend before returning in Round 12 to take on the New Zealand Warriors.
