With their season rapidly slipping away, Newcastle found a new way to heap more pain on their fans and give more ammunition to their critics on Sunday - by kicking themselves when they're down.
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The hole is deep enough right now without the Knights creating their own digging party.
The Titans will rightly point out they took their opportunities but most of Newcastle's misery was self-inflicted.
Their own errors and the inexcusably poor reaction of players after they were made gifted the Titans their 38-14 win on the Gold Coast, the Knights fifth straight defeat.
Three Titans tries came directly off the back of Knights mistakes with the lack of urgency to clean up the errors after they were made almost a greater sin than the mistakes themselves.
Poor execution and ball handling is one thing. Lacking the desperation and desire to cover up the mess straight afterwards is another altogether.
Heads need to roll after another lack-lustre loss with coach Nathan Brown having no real choice than to send a pretty clear message to his squad about what's acceptable and what isn't.
Brown defended his middle forwards after the game for not getting the rewards for their hard work. I'd argue their line speed in defence in the opening 15 minutes was again lacking for the second straight week.
That contributed to another poor start.
The Titans may not have rolled through the middle as easily as Manly did last match but they still controlled all the early field position off the back of a Knights' defence lacking real leadership.
You can mount a strong case for Jamie Buhrer to start next Sunday's clash against Parramatta at hooker ahead of Danny Levi with Dan Saifiti, despite a costly first touch error, also worthy of an opportunity in the starting side at the expense of James Gavet. Backrower Sione Mata'utia and utility Kurt Mann will also come under strong consideration.
As strange as it may seem given the scoreboard and the errors, much of the Knights attack looked far better than it has all season.
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Maligned skipper Mitchell Pearce was one of the best on the field, Kalyn Ponga was heavily involved and very dangerous, Connor Watson had some good second half moments at five-eighth while Jesse Ramien and Hymel Hunt saw more ball than they have all season.
Enough opportunities were created to post four or five more tries. Two scoring chances were botched in the first half through poor execution and while they scored three in the final 40 minutes, they bombed a further three and had two others disallowed.
But Brown put the second half resurgence into some perspective.
"I think we are past being a team that should look to fight back and come in and pump our chest out and think we have had a go in the second half," he said.