St George Illawarra Dragons captain and Queensland Maroons star Ben Hunt has admitted his kicking game wasn't up to the mark during a horror loss to the Manly Sea Eagles at Brookvale on Sunday afternoon.
Despite the Dragons playing against a Manly side with no one on the bench for all of the second half, it was the home side who kicked clear to take a win which has been described as one of the club's best ever.
The wasteful Dragons were poor in attack for the most part with bad decision-making and horrific control of the football.
Hunt admitted post-game his own kicking game played a role, and said his side simply turned the ball over too often.
โI felt like we gave ourselves enough opportunities, but we didn't execute to our strengths. I let us down a fair bit with our kicking which gave them a lot of energy I think. They are a team that have a lot of points in them if you let them have it. We just kept turning it over cheaply to them and like Flanno said, Cherry [Daly Cherry-Evans] played really well,โ Hunt said during the post-game press conference.
The Dragons, who were coming off two wins on the bounce and a 44-point second half effort against the Wests Tigers last weekend looked a shell of the team they have proven they can be, and coach Shane Flanagan said his side were poor despite having opportunities to win, while also paying credit to Daly Cherry-Evans and the Sea Eagles.
โI thought it was there to win. Just poor execution, it could have gone either way at one point. Twice we were over the try line and don't get tries, but credit to them. They hung in. Cherry-Evans was outstanding I thought, so we will just have to lick our wounds and try again,โ Flanagan said.
โI'll have to have a look at it a bit closer. At halftime we thought we were in reasonably good shape, but it just got away from us in the second half. There were some big moments they scored tries and once again, Chez kicked well. It was a game we could have won.โ
Flanagan admitted his side, who haven't been used to winning in recent seasons, may have been over-awed by the occasion as they chased a third straight win in front of a sell-out crowd at Brookvale.
โIt is a bit of [an opportunity for] growth. We need to learn from today and not have too many of them. To win three in a row going into the bye would have been perfect, but it isn't. We just need to learn from it. There are some boys in there that have probably never been in this situation for a while. We need to learn from this experience, coming to Brookvale, a big game for both teams and just to find a way to get it done,โ Flanagan said.
The Dragons also lost Moses Suli in the pre-game warm up to a hamstring injury, but will be hoping the upcoming bye is enough time for him to recover and be back on the field when the Red V face the Dolphins at home on June 30 in their next game.
