NZ Warriors coach Nathan Brown has no excuses for his club's heavy defeat to the Manly Sea Eagles on Saturday, which could see them drop to 14th on the NRL ladder.
Manly had just one more win than the Warriors heading into the clash and was without stars Daly Cherry-Evans and Tom Trbojevic, but easily dispatched the visitors 44-12 at Sydney.
The Warriors had no answer for the waves of the Sea Eagles' attack, with Haumalo Olakau'atu and Tolutau Koula leading the charge - putting the result beyond doubt before halftime with a 24-0 lead at the break.
The result predictably disheartened Brown.
"Our first half was horrible, you can't hide from that. In the post-match press conference, you can't offer any excuses," he said at the post-match press conference.
"As a coach, the start of the game is really important. You're supposed to prepare your team to start well and I've got to take a fair hit there.
"Our last two performances we've lost where we've played some footy, we let ourselves down with some fundamentals but we certainly didn't let ourselves down with intent early in the game.
"We let ourselves down with intent today which is extremely disappointing.
"Our biggest issue is the number of players we don't get a good performance out of on the same day.
"Why’s that the case? I can’t sit here and give a 100 percent answer to that, because I’m seeing some blokes who are training and preparing reasonably well."
While performances on the field have been poor, it's hard to look past the amount of off-the-field challenges and controversy that has engulfed the team in the past few months.
From not being able to play at home all season or the controversial departure of star prop, Matt Lodge, the club has done it tough.
But Brown has refused to let that be the reason for their shortcomings.
"I don't coach on fear," he said.
"I've been in too long to worry about all the other stuff. I've had a long run in these chairs.
"You just keep doing what you think is right and you just have to stick with it.
"We by no means have entered every game this year thinking we are going to win every contest but we certainly would like to have competed in every contest.
"The club has had a lot of difficult times, there's no doubt about that but we can't put today's performances down to that.
"We've gone through more than anyone, we can't hide from that but we actually prepared really well. [In] the last three weeks of training we've made some good growth in some areas.
"What we did today, we can't lump that with being away from home."
