Titans left to lament poor defensive lapses
TITANS prop Jarrod Wallace has slammed the “crappy” part of the Titans game that has seen them slump to seven losses from the last nine games.
The Gold Coast came back from a 30-4 deficit to lose 35-34 to the Roosters on the Gold Coast on Saturday.
It summed up how inconsistent the team has been. That’s been the Titans in the past two months but the bad has outweighed the good in defence by a country mile with the side having conceded 380
points in just 14 games.
For Wallace, it was the rails run the Titans gave the Roosters attackers that stuck in his craw the most.
“The first try (to Matt Ikuvalu) was a barge over. Then Angus Crichton went straight through … even to the very last one (also to Ikuvalu). They are crappy tries,” Wallace said.
“It is not as though they beat us with shape, or that we can sit there and go ‘they were a better team’. We are just hurting ourselves and the disappointing thing is that we know we can defend really well but we are nowhere near where we need to be.
“We were (14) points in front against Souths. Last week we blew four tries against the Storm and should have won. We should have won tonight.
“We know we are far better team than 12th, and we have probably slipped further.”
The Raiders big 38-16 win against the Broncos has now consigned the Titans to 13th position and the finals are now looking like a pipe dream.
The red-hot Sea Eagles await next Sunday on the Gold Coast.
“We obviously have to play a whole lot better against them than we did in Mudgee that’s for sure,” Wallace said.
“I think our mindset is really good. We’ve just got to fix our execution.
“I’m really proud of the way the boys came back (against the Roosters) but once we get in front we’ve got to keep it there. That’s the next step we have to build, the resilience to close it out when we do get in front.
“Inconsistency … it is the rollercoaster that we don’t want to be on. Melbourne did it to us last week. We fought back into that and they were good enough to hold us out. The Roosters were good enough to get back in front.”
Meanwhile, Wallace said it was “very hard” to watch the Maroons get thrashed by the Blues in the State of Origin series opener.”