It is two weeks in a row the Reserve Grade Newcastle Knights have lost by a devastating two points as the ISP side find it difficult to move from ninth on the ladder.
“It is very disappointing particularly where we’re at, at this stage of the season,” said ISP coach Simon Woolford.
“Our position on the ladder and the hard work we’ve done the last couple of months to get ourselves in a good position.
“It was pretty hard to take the week before and for it to pretty much happen again seven days later and have that game taken away from us in the final play of the game, was disappointing.”
The Knights staged a 26-point comeback in the second stanza to even up the scores with Illawarra but there wasn’t enough time to recover after a late penalty goal sealed the win for the visitors.
“There were some things when we hit the lead with five or six minutes to go that we needed to do a lot better,” Woolford explained.
“We didn’t and for the second week in a row we got burnt.
“I am also disappointed that we let 34 points in because we haven’t done that for two months.
“Clearly there were some things defensively that weren’t good enough and poor lapses in concentration from individuals.”
The Reserve Grade coach admits it wasn’t their day.
“Across the board the effort was really good but we got made to pay,” added Woolford.
“Some of the tries they scored on the weekend were too easy and in the context of the season, it was pretty hard to take.”
With a bye this week, Woolford knows they can’t afford any more slip ups if they want to play finals footy.
“We have probably got the toughest run home out of all of the teams,” stated Woolford.
“We just need to have a break, get the review process out of the way and have a couple of days off to come back ready next week and treat it like a new season.
“We need to win our final games to ensure we get a crack at the semi-finals and we can’t afford any slip ups now.
“We have the team to do it but as we’ve seen in the last two weeks, it takes more than a 70-minute effort or a 65-minute effort or a 75-minute effort, it requires an 80-minute effort.
“It is just a matter of getting through this week, getting over it and coming back next week refreshed for the final games.”
