Danny Levi says the NYC Newcastle Knights will take plenty of lessons from their match against the North Queensland Cowboys, which saw the young Knights on the wrong end of a 56-16 score line.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
One of the key areas for improvement according to the side’s hooker is the Knights’ defense.
“I think it was their big forwards,” Levi told Knights TV in the sheds after the game.
“We came out with the mentality thinking that we were going to stop them, but we didn’t quite do that on the field.
“We let them through a fair bit, but that’s something that we’ll have to go back and work on.
“There’s a few things we have to work on and it’s definitely our defense in the middle, also our go-forward. I think we’ve been lacking that in the last couple of weeks.
“I think that’s something Craig Smith (and other coaches) are really going to challenge us on in the next couple of weeks.
Team manager Craig Smith said the loss was a result of the Knights’ inability to execute their game plan.
“Confidence, or the lack of it was our biggest issue today,” Smith said.
“Collectively as a team we moved away form our principles.
“The fundamentals of rugby league – completing sets with your own ball helps you get into the game and I think in the first half we made seven mistakes, so nearly half of our possession we gave to them.
“It didn’t get us off to a good start and then our confidence was a big issue.
“We were chasing ourselves the whole way through.
“What happened today I think is they turned into individuals and tried to do things on their own and it doesn’t work that way.”