NZ Warriors coach Stacey Jones didn't have to think too long about what let his team down in their 48-4 beating at the hands of North Queensland Cowboys on Friday.
Inspired by the memory of late coach Paul Green in their first home game since his death, the Cowboys claimed an early lead and never looked back, dismantling the Warriors in a one-sided encounter at Queensland Country Bank Stadium.
The defeat was sobering for the Warriors after the high of their impressive win over Canterbury Bulldogs last weekend, where the differentiating factor, according to Jones, was all down to that classic sporting buzzword - attitude.
"That was tough," said Jones after the game. "Too many guys just didn't turn up tonight. We just didn't have enough players that wanted to play for the jersey.
"Attitude has been a big word we've used the last couple of weeks and when things were tough, poor attitude came into the game. We probably had eight or nine blokes on the field that had a poor attitude and it showed what can happen.
"We had some blokes who had a dig but you need 13 blokes on the field to work together and we didn't have that tonight."
Captain Tohu Harris echoed his coach's sentiments, pointing to the inexplicable gulf in the quality of the team's performances at Mt Smart Stadium and those across the Tasman.
"It takes less than the eight or nine [players] that Stacey mentioned," said Harris. "It's just one or two people in a particular set and then we're chasing our tails for the next few sets.
"It wasn't the same people every set. There were a number of us - myself included - that just performed poorly tonight and we need to be better on the road
"We seem like a completely different team at home but we've shown we can put that kind of effort in, have a good attitude, there's no reason why we can't on the road."
Among a host of players who struggled, Reece Walsh's travails may have been the most glaring and costly. The Broncos-bound fullback fumbled a pair of high balls which were punished with tries, while he was steamrolled on defence for the Cowboy's two opening tries.
Jones acknowledged Walsh hadn't had a night to remember but refused to concede the youngster's heart had already touched down in his native Brisbane.
"Last week was near his best performance for us and he's got to learn that you've got to be consistent," he said.
"Reece was dropped a couple weeks ago for being inconsistent and we'll sit down and have a look at his performance along with everyone else
"I don't fault Reece's commitment, he has a go at everything - he attacks things at 100mph and that's a learning thing for him
"Where he's going next year I'm sure they'll help him but he's got two weeks left with us and we want him to be at his best."
There were few highlights for the Warriors in what became their heaviest-ever defeat to the Cowboys, as untimely errors were consistently punished by their high-flying hosts.
The theme was all too familiar - the Warriors clawing their way back back into the contest only to be let down with mistakes which, in turn, led to heads dropping.
"We fought our way back into the game when we were 12-0 down to score a try, and then we give up an error and then we let them in with a couple of soft tries and too often it's happened this year," noted Jones.
"We come up with errors and then we're not putting the effort in to defend those errors. We might defend the set but then we'll have a poor attacking set… the Cowboys made errors tonight but they recovered from it.
"They played really well tonight. We expected them to come out how they did but we just decided at times we didn't want to go with them."
Now sitting 14th on the NRL ladder, the Warriors are in genuine danger of claiming the wooden spoon.
With two games remaining, they're currently four points clear of Wests Tigers and Gold Coast Titans, who both have three games left to play.
They'll face the lethal league-leading Penrith Panthers at Sydney - where you can pencil in a loss - before completing their 2022 campaign against the Titans at Auckland on September 3.
"We've got two weeks to go to try and get something in the jersey to try and finish the year off strong," said Jones.
"The players are sitting in there embarrassed and we've got to fight our way out of this."
