Manly Sea Eagles coach Kieran Foran admits that his side has to “get better” if they are to keep their finals hopes alive after slumping to a third consecutive defeat.
After a disappointing month, which has seen them lose to the Parramatta Eels, North Queensland Cowboys and now the Gold Coast Titans, the Sea Eagles’ campaign is threatening to unravel at the worst possible time.
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However, Foran, who is in his first year at the coaching helm, is embracing the challenge of lifting the side out of their poor form and remains confident that they can revive their season.
“It’s definitely a challenge for sure, but I didn’t take the job thinking I wasn’t going to be challenged,” Foran said post-match.
“I love being challenged. I have my whole life, and this is no different.
“We’re in this together. We’ll fight our way out of it. I’ve got full belief in where we’re heading this year I haven’t deviated from that.
“I said that to the guys in there. I know what we’re capable of doing. We’ve just hit a bit of a flat spot not in terms of our energy and our intent.
“Our energy and intent is there and our purpose, but just the style of footy that we’re playing isn’t helping us
“We’re self-inflicting a lot of pain and sides are too good these days to continuously do that, so that’s where we’ve got to get better.”
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Speaking about Sunday’s performance in particular, where they were defeated 38-32 by the Titans, he pinpointed the closing stages of the opening half as the moment they lost control of the contest.
This is where he stated that costly lapses allowed the opposition back into the game and highlighted the ongoing issue (a positive play followed by a negative play) that has plagued the Sea Eagles as of late.
“That’s where we lost the game at the back end of that first half. We started the game really well and did everything we wanted to do,” Foran continued.
“I thought we were really physical in our contact, played some nice footy to get ahead and then just lost our way with our brand of footy.
“We’re just not putting together long periods of really good play at the moment. I know I’ve been touching on it for the past month. A positive play quickly followed up by a negative play.
“I said to the guys before that really good block we had of wins we were putting together lots and lots of positive plays and really building the contest.
“We’re just not doing that at the moment which is allowing teams back into the contest and it’s not playing the way that we want to play.
“We’ve got to work out why that is happening and we’ve got to work it out.”