Broncos Kevin Walters was uncharacteristically short with the media in his post-match press conference after a brutal 34-32 loss to the Storm.
Brisbane were looking to snap a seven-game losing streak in Melbourne and led the game for 75 minutes but fell just short in a try-fest.
Walters said soft defence ultimately cost his side the game but was left unimpressed with how a question was framed from Fox League’s Lara Pitt.
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Pitt started her question with “Kevvie it was a really entertaining game for fans to watch” before the losing coach cut her off.
“I’m pleased you liked it, Lara,” Walters said sarcastically.
But Pitt held her nerve and finished the question: “but obviously you want to set a standard defensively. Is that the message you’ve hammered home to them straight after the game?”
“It certainly is,” Walter said.
“There’s plenty of effort and I can’t fault their effort and we lost Adam (Reynolds) at halftime which was a pretty big disruption for us.
“But we just weren’t quite there defensively and that’s the most annoying thing because there was lots of effort and we just have to get the effort into the right places.
“We showed it… I mean some of the tries we scored were amazing and that’s great for all the crowd, I’m pleased you’re enjoying it, but we’ve got to be better defensively.
“I feel sorry for them in there because so much effort went in and a couple little sloppy areas and you concede points against a team like the Storm who are always at you… we’ll learn from this tonight and will certainly be better moving forward.
“You just look how hard our boys worked to score tries (compared to the Storm), that’s what’s disappointing.”
Storm seal victory in try fest classic! | 03:05
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Walters was also unimpressed with his side’s ruck speed and took a thinly-veiled swipe at the Storm for their wrestling tactics.
“They seemed to be getting one-second quicker play-the-balls than us,” he said.
“They obviously wrestle well, the Storm, and just seemed to have that advantage for the whole game, the play-the-ball speed, over 80 minutes, makes a huge difference which I’m sure everybody watching saw.
“There’s lots to like but we came here to win and we didn’t, so I’m disappointed.
“We didn’t deserve to win in the end, a couple of soft tries there. But what do you say… when you concede 34 points… You can’t expect to win a game of footy when they score that many tries.
“It’s not acceptable.”
Broncos skipper Reynolds added: “We were poor defensively, a couple of soft tries which is never nice to concede. We got ourselves out of trouble but also felt a bit all over the place at times.”
Devastated Reynolds cops 1st half injury | 01:07
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