A dejected Benji Marshall was disappointed with his side’s lack of fight and commitment and challenged his side to learn from their 64-0 thrashing by the Storm in Round 10.
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The Tigers came into the clash in the top eight with five wins and four losses, but the humbling by the title favourites shows how much more work the Tigers have to go to reach the elite teams in the NRL.
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“Just we’ve got to be better than that,” Marshall said.
“We’ve built standards that we want to live by, and today we didn’t live by any of them.
“So everyone’s disappointed, embarrassed. Probably a few other words you could use, but it’s not good enough.”
Marshall believes his side were beaten up by the Storm, but called on his side to move on and take some hard lessons from the humbling defeat.
“There’s losing the game, and then there’s being beaten, and we got actually beat today,” Marshall said.
“We’ve got a team that usually fights for everything, and I just didn’t see the same fight today.
“So in the balance of our season, we’re five and five now. Reflect where we are, and we’ve got to learn from it, and we’ve got to get back up for next week.
“We can’t dwell on that. You can hurt from it, take the hurt into next week, and we can improve, but we can’t dwell on it and take it into next week.”
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Marshall conceded he would look at his own coaching and preparation of the side coming into the clash.
“It is something we have to look at, but I don’t want to make any excuses, we have just got to be better,” Marshall said.
“It’s sort of like a couple of steps forward, and then a few steps back, and we took a lot of steps back today.
“We know it works for us. We know the process we need to apply, and we just didn’t apply any of it today.
“So it’s probably something I need to look at with the way I coached this week and see what I can improve next week to help the team.
“But I think we all need to just look in the mirror and be better for next week.”
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Marshall flagged a tough review was ahead for the players, but believes they can turn the defeat into a positive.
“Everyone knows how good they are, and how hard they are to beat at home,” Marshall said.
“And they got on a roll, and we just couldn’t get anything back, so it’s going to be a hard review and a hard watch, but you’ve got to learn from it.
“And I guess we’ve set our expectation now where we’re expected to be better than that, and we are better than that.”
Tigers skipper Api Koroisau believes the Storm defeat was a brutal reality check for his side.
“We’ve had a couple of wins, but I guess when you’re going good, you’re never as good as you think you are,” Koroisau said.
“So for us, it’s all about looking at our prep and the way we’re rocking up the games.”
Koroisau was pressed on if his players would lose confidence gained from their strong start to the year.
“I don’t think so, I think if anything it lights a fire inside you,” Koroisau said.
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“Like I said, you’re never as good as you think you are. So, for us, it’s a great look in the mirror from where we want to be, so I think it’ll be a good thing for us.”
In a blow for the Tigers, Fonua Pole aggravated a knee injury against the Storm and did not return.
“He had like a lingering meniscus injury,” Marshall said.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. He could be back next week. We’ll have to get scans.”
Marshall believes the Storm have shown his team where they need to get to but challenged his side to control their game in order to compete harder for longer.
“I think Melbourne Storm have been the benchmark of the comp for the last 20 years,” Marshall said.
“We knew they were going to come out fast. We knew after what happened last week they were going to be upbeat and ready to play.
“But the disappointing thing for us is we can control our actions, and we didn’t do what we said we were going to.”
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