Dragons coach Shane Flanagan was frustrated with his side’s effort and execution as their resurgent season hit a roadblock in their 46-18 ANZAC Day thrashing by the Roosters.
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The Dragons came into the clash having won three of their last four, but they were dominated by the Roosters and halfback Sandon Smith in a carve-up at Allianz Stadium.
“I’m really disappointed, especially where we have been the last couple of weeks,” Flanagan said.
“We’ve shown the sort of football we can play and the first half just cooked us. We had 29 per cent of possession at halftime and you hope that swings and you hope that you’ve got some energy left to make it swing, but credit to them that they applied pressure and we only had 29 per cent of possession.
“I could just tell at halftime we were just looking for answers and we were a bit out on our feet.
“Some of the things that we’ve been so good at is our tackle control and we were just off today.
“Hopefully it’s just one of those things that it’s hard to maintain form and we just didn’t get it right today, especially in the first half.”
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Flanagan conceded the Roosters handled the emotion of the occasion better and were far more up for the contest from the opening stages.
“They ran harder and got field position and put up better kicks than us at the end, where we’re kicking from inside our 40,” Flanagan said.
“I think we scored a try with only three per cent of possession, but as I said halftime with only 29 per cent of possession just killed us.”
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Flanagan was pressed on whether there were better decisions that his team could have made to swing that possession.
“Yes, definitely,” Flanagan said.
“There was a couple of errors on tackle one, errors with the football not getting to kicks, so once again that’s self-inflicted a lot of it.
“Some of it’s well done to the Roosters but some of it’s definitely us.”
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Flanagan admitted the Dragons handled the sin bin of Sandon Smith poorly and missed an opportunity to get back in the game, as the Roosters seemed to dominate the period they were reduced to 12 men and even scored a try.
“Yeah, without a doubt,” Flanagan said.
“We needed to throw a ball to the ground there. Our skill has been good and our execution on our edges has been good.
“But today on that occasion the ball goes to ground and then they go to the other end and I think they scored a try, kicked the penalty goal and we didn’t have the ball while they were down to 12 men, so I think they handled it better than we did.”
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Dragons co-captain Damien Cook admitted his side missed a golden opportunity to get back in the game when Smith was sin-binned.
“It probably was a moment in the game that we could have handled a lot better and they did it really well,” Cook said.
“They controlled the game. Like Flanno said, it’s just been areas of our game that have been really good around ruck control, markers and stuff and we just weren’t at our best today and it is a simple game, we made it hard for ourselves.
“They ran harder and they tackled harder on a big occasion.”
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