POST-MATCH: Ryan Carr

“I just spoke to the group about it, and it’s hard to explain to people outside our environment.

"But compared to last week, which I was really disappointed with, I felt we physically went after them tonight, which pleased me.”

“What let us down was some really fundamental errors. We conceded six tries on the fifth tackle, and that just makes it too hard—especially against a really good opposition who hardly made a mistake. You can do 90 per cent of your set well, but if you don’t have urgency on that last play, you get punished.”

“There were two tries where we had the ball in our hands and dropped it over the line, and they capitalised. From my perspective, I took a lot out of the game, but one thing I said to the players is we don’t accept that.”

“They were individual mistakes—getting up to play the ball, catching the ball, getting to dummy-half. You can’t really drill that. It’s the basics of rugby league, you just have to execute.”

“I had to stay positive and asked them to fight in the second half, not roll over. To be fair to them, I thought they did that.

“One of their tries came from us dropping it over the line again, and another came from a brilliant play where Mikey Lewis caught his own bomb and set up a score. But I was disappointed with their first two tries from dummy half. They were really soft. We know why that happened, and so do the players. That’s the frustrating part.”

“Possession ended up around 65–35, and against the world club champions at their place, you’re making it too hard on yourself. In the first half we made four or five fundamental errors and the penalty count was 5–0. That’s why we found ourselves in that position.”

“We’re not accepting conceding 50 points. But I’ve got to stay positive with this group and help us fight our way out of it. We’ve got two choices—say it’s too hard and give up, or fight to get better.”

“We fixed something glaring, but then something else slipped. We need to keep the things we’re doing well and add improvements, rather than one coming in and another dropping out. Field position and possession were against us again, largely through our own errors, and we needed to be better on last plays.”

“We’ll train all next week and work hard with the new players who’ve joined the squad to get them up to speed with our systems and expectations.”

On new recruits

“They came in yesterday and had a real crack. They threw their bodies into it and competed hard. Did we get everything right? No, but their effort was excellent, and I was really pleased with them.”

“It’s hard to be too critical when I haven’t fully coached them yet. But coming into a new team and learning new play calls, I didn’t think they looked out of place. They’ll have moments they’d like back, but they kept fighting.

 “A lot of them hadn’t played much rugby recently, but they stuck at it.”

On injuries

“We should have three or four back—maybe more. Semi is close, we need to check on Ashton Golding, George Lawler will be back from suspension, and Lewis Senior is returning from a syndesmosis injury. So we’ll be in a better position.”