NYC Newcastle Knights coach Todd Lowrie wasn’t impressed by the 36-point defeat on Saturday against the Melbourne Thunderbolts and knows everything will need to go their way for the remaining two games of the season.
“We are all very disappointed with the result but we’re still some chance of making the finals so we need to dust ourselves off and get ready for this weekend,” he said.
“I think if we win the two games we’ll be fine but if we only win one, we’ll have to rely on a lot of other results.
“I am pretty sure if we win both games, we’ll make the semis.”
The Under 20s coach felt they were out-played by the Thunderbolts for the entire 80 minutes.
“We weren’t executing our shape well and we didn’t do what we planned to do,” Lowrie stated.
“We weren’t defending very well and I thought we lost the ruck against the Storm who are traditionally pretty good in the ruck.
“We didn’t execute our plays well and they put on a lot of points before the end of the game.”
Despite being without key players Pasami Saulo and Brodie Jones, who got promoted to Reserve Grade, Lowrie said they still should’ve put on a better performance.
“It is good for them because they have been playing well so they deserved their chance to go up but I certainly don’t think the absence of those guys, whilst they would have been handy in the team, contributed to the loss,” said Lowrie.
“The simple fact is, I still expected the guys to do a job and unfortunately we just didn’t get it done.”
NYC take on the Canberra Raiders at GIO Stadium this Friday before the Cronulla Sharks in the season’s last round.
