Knights coach Adam O’Brien shot back at a reporter for being “too harsh” following his side’s fourth straight loss on Sunday night.
Newcastle were thoroughly outplayed by Cronulla who charged through the middle to set up a convincing 34-14 victory.
But O’Brien took exception to the suggestion that it was a repeat of the 20-4 loss to the Wests Tigers a week earlier.
“(That’s) too harsh. A ton of effort went into tonight,” O’Brien said.
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“Last week was riddled with play one errors and clearly there were a lot of errors today but we’ve got a team (working hard).
“Our depth is being tested at the moment, we’ve got five injuries but that’s not the problem, every team has injuries, but the issue is it’s five in the same position, they’re all forwards so that takes its toll.
“I’m disappointed, we always want to win and I especially hate losing here (at home), but I don’t feel like we’ve let anyone down in terms of how hard we’re trying, so yeah I reckon you’re being too harsh.”
O’Brien wasn’t impressed with the Bunker’s decision to sin bin James Schiller for a try-saving tackle on Mawene Hiroti which the on-field official had no problems with live.
“(Hiroti) was lowering in the act of trying to score a try, I don’t know what (Schiller) is meant to do, just let him score the try?” O’Brien said.
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“But I don’t want to come in here and whinge about that stuff. I don’t want to see Teig (Wilton) in trouble (for breaking Tyson Frizell’s nose in a tackle), it’s footy, it’s rugby league.
“I certainly didn’t think it warranted 10 but I’m just going to lay off that. It hurt (the result), of course.”
The Knights have the worst attack in the NRL but skipper Kalyn Ponga said despite the scoreline that it was an improvement on last week.
“Yeah I think it did (feel different to last week). I feel like we were in that game,” he said.
“I think we did well to get into halftime at 16-4 given the field position we gave them. That period after halftime definitely hurt.
“We’re a tough little footy team, we just need to be disciplined in certain areas.”
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