nib Newcastle Knights NRL Head Coach, Adam O'Brien, and Captain, Kalyn Ponga, spoke to the media following the side's defeat to the North Queensland Cowboys on Saturday night.
After taking the lead at the change of ends, the side conceded 24 unanswered points to go down to the Cowboys 36-16.
Looking at the positives and key takeaways from the game, the Coach addressed the performance, the current state of injuries and provided an update on Jack Johns and Edrick Lee.
AOB and Ponga on Cowboys loss, depth and Johns update
ON THE PERFORMANCE
"Our starts aren't great at the moment but we fought our way back into this one, where as last week when Melbourne started fast on us, we didn't wrangle it back," O'Brien said.
"There was a tonne of effort going into parts of our game, but we got to get smarter.
"There is no doubt the experience coming back next week will help, but we still need to hold individuals accountable.
"You can't afford ill-discipline, I think we had four play-one errors and we had four last-play tries (conceded) so you can't do that regardless of whether you've played 10 games or 50 games.
"I'm proud of some individuals Dom Young, Lachlan Fitzgibbon, Mat Croker, I thought they were outstanding and we rushed them back from injury... but we hold ourselves to high standards."
SELECTION FOR NEXT WEEK
"I need to see what options we have," O'Brien said.
"I need to have a look at Adam (Clune), see if he's knee is settled.
"We will look at our personnel, we have a few more concerns tonight.
"I'm confident we will get six guys back next week and a couple more after that, so we get eight back in the next two weeks."
JOHNS AND LEE UPDATE
"Jack is off to hospital, whether it's a broken arm or wrist," O'Brien said.
"It doesn't look good for Jack.
"Edrick I think was a category one HIA.
"He seems to be ok, I had a chat to him but he'll go through the HIA protocols."
