The St George Illawarra Dragons have endured their second straight thrashing, but interim coach Ryan Carr was happier with his team's attitude on Thursday evening in the Shire.
Falling 52 points to 16 at the hands of the Cronulla Sharks, the heavy loss for the Dragons came on the back of conceding 48 points at the hands of the New Zealand Warriors last week.
It was the second heavy loss for the club since captain Ben Hunt announced his intentions to leave the club.
Despite that, Carr said the attitude of his team in a game where they had just 39 per cent of the ball, was greatly improved on what it was during last week's home loss to the Warriors.
“We were definitely right in the game. When we scored there early in the second half, brought it back to 24-16,” Carr said during his post-game press conference.
“We had 39 per cent of the ball in the first half, I think we ended up making 150 more tackles and defended 60 play the balls inside our 20. That's due credit to them. They played a good game of footy, they didn't make errors, they played field position well, but I thought we were really brave for long periods there.
“We had one set inside their 20 in the second half and we came up with a bad play. They made a line break off a kick and turned the momentum.”
Carr admitted his club's defence was a concern, but said there were moments of impressive resilience during the game.
“It's definitely a concern. Last week I questioned our attitude which tonight I didn't question our attitude. I thought we were quite brave for long periods of that game defending our tryline,” Carr said.
“For example, just before halftime there we defended five or six sets back to back to back and they got one just before the break which was a bit disheartening. We got beat on execution tonight.”
It was a synopsis captain Hunt agreed with.
“It was a bit different tonight. I felt like we actually competed a lot harder tonight than we did last week,” Hunt said.
“The scoreboard doesn't reflect that, but I felt like we competed hard, tried real hard in a lot of areas and they had a lot of possession.”
The Dragons, who sit anchored to the bottom of the NRL, have what is comfortably the NRL's worst defensive record following the last fortnight, with the club's left edge in particular being torn to shreds by the Sharks.
It was a left edge down on man power though with Moses Suli and Jack Bird out of the game.
The interim coach was upbeat with their performances.
“Obviously we lost Sulz [Moses Suli] there with a concussion there last week, so he is a big part of our left edge,” Carr said.
“I thought Matty [Mat Feagai] did a good job having his first go there for us, and Tau [Tautau Moga] had to come in and do a job, and Murder [Ben Murdoch-Masila] has come in for Birdy [Jack Bird] there, so it's a completely new edge. Like I said, if you give any NRL team 60 play the balls inside your 20, there are going to be some points scored. It's fact.”
In a game where the Dragons were alive early in the piece before drifting badly during a ferocious second half from the Sharks, Carr said not all factors were in the Red V's control.
It was a game where the joint venture comfortably lost the six to go count, and Carr said he couldn't understand why the count was so lopsided.
“It's not one moment. I mean, the six to gos at 7-1 is going to make it hard for you too. I'll have to go back and have a look at it, but I just couldn't visually see that we were that much worse [than the Sharks discipline-wise],” Carr said.
“It's hard enough to play this team here at home when they have pretty much pretty much a full strength team out there. There are a lot of influential factors that come into the reason we had to defend 60 play the balls inside our 20.”
The Dragons have won just 4 out of their 12 games so far this year and sit anchored to the bottom of the NRL ladder with a Friday night clash against the Canberra Raiders on the menu next.