Coach Matt Lantry said a high error count contributed to the reserve grade Newcastle Knights’ 42-18 loss to Mounties at Hunter Stadium on Saturday.
“We made 13 errors for the game and gave away 6 penalties. That’s 19 opportunities you’ve giving your opposition, which is far too many," he said after the game.
Attention to detail will now be the focus as the side prepares for its next encounter against Wentworthville Magpies on Sunday.
“We made too many basic errors today,” he said.
“When you have to defend the amount of possession we gave away, it makes it difficult to get things done.”
Knights forward Josh King earned recognition from the coach for his gutsy show of stamina on home turf.
“I thought Josh King was very good playing 70 minutes in the front row,” he said.
“It was a tremendous effort from Josh.
“For Mao Uta’s first game at centre, I though he was really good as was James Elias as well.
“We had some good performances, but we will move forward.”
Josh King also critiqued the match and acknowledged the same shortcomings as Lantry.
“It’s really disappointing and that was a bad loss today," he said.
“I think we were really good in patches and then other patches, not so good.
“Our discipline wasn’t very good. We gave away lot of penalties and dropped a lot of ball.
“We lacked a bit of structure in our good ball attack so we will come back better.
“It’s just the little things we need to get right and that will really take our game to the next level.”
King, who has made the step up from the Knights’ NYC side last year, is enjoying the test of playing in the reserve grade team.
"It’s been really good, it’s my first fulltime season playing with the reserve grade Knights,” he said.
"I’m enjoying it. They are a great bunch of blokes and a great bunch of coaches, so it’s good."
