Canberra Raiders prop Frank-Paul Nuuausala says he's "pissed off" by the lack of discipline which has crippled their season, admitting the side has single-handedly sabotaged its finals chances.
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The Raiders will be looking to avoid the worst home record in a season in club history when they face red-hot Manly at Canberra Stadium on Sunday.
With just two wins from 10 home games this year, and only Penrith at home to come, a loss would mean Canberra will rewrite the record books by eclipsing the inaugural 1982 side and 2011 squad (both four home wins).
After Monday's shock 20-8 loss to the Tigers, Canberra has now lost seven games by eight points or less this year, six of those at home.
Coach Ricky Stuart said his team was "too impatient" and "should have learnt from those experiences" after the loss, which means Canberra must win its last four games to be any hope of playing finals.
Nuuausala said the knowledge they had beaten themselves more often than being outplayed by the opposition was vexing.
"We just shot ourselves in the foot, I'm just pissed off because I know we're better than that and as a team," he said.
"It's a learning curve for the boys but we'll cop our medicine at video and will totally deserve what we get from Stick [Stuart]. That's on us, all these close games we lost we could have won.
"It shows some inexperience when it comes to those close periods, we haven't built the pressure to get those two points.
"That's the disappointing thing, we tried to score off every play instead of building pressure, and we didn't play our standard of footy.
"Everyone's been guilty of that during the year, it's pretty hard to cop that because we've been doing it the last couple of games and we still haven't learnt."
English hooker Josh Hodgson returned earlier than expected and in his first 80-minute performance in the NRL racked up an incredible 144 metres and 46 tackles.
"There's not many words at the minute, I'm pretty down, but as a team we've been turning over too much ball and not having our fair share of possession through our own fault," Hodgson said.
"It's come back to bite us and it hurts, but we need to learn from it and move on, we can't be kicking stones for too long. We've been losing the tight games and we need to start winning more of them.
"If we were miles away and getting beaten by 40 points we'd need to have a good look at ourselves, but when we're every chance of winning the game and coming up short by small margins, it's tough to take."
The Raiders have scored the most points in the NRL this year, but their defence has leaked the third-most.
Hodgson said they needed to find a happy medium between using their attacking flair and playing the percentages.
"We're a good attacking team and we don't want to take that away from us, but there's a time and place and I think that's one of the things to learn," he said. "There's a time and place to throw the miracle pass and when to hold it.
"Myself and the other senior boys will try and keep everyone upbeat."
SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR
The losses that could cost the Raiders a finals berth
Up 18-0 after 19 minutes thanks to tries from Josh Hodgson, Sia Soliola and Blake Austin, the Raiders looked set for a comfortable win. The crowd were ecstatic when former favourite son Josh Dugan was sinbinned in the second half, but he had the last laugh after the Dragons stole their first win of the year.
The Raiders led 10-2 at half-time but after losing two of their biggest workers in Hodgson and Shaun Fensom to injury, the Storm ground out the win in the second half. It meant Dane Tilse, who has since departed to Hull KR, bowed out a loser in his last home game.
In arguably the most bizarre game of the season, the Bulldogs, minus their Origin stars, led 26-0 after just 18 minutes. Canberra threatened the equal biggest comeback in NRL history by rallying to level scores 34-all. However, an ugly field goal from Josh Reynolds just sailed over the crossbar. "We knew we could get back into it but we're still filthy the way we played in that first 20. It wasn't our standards, we're all gutted and it's not a good way to lose," Raiders skipper Jarrod Croker said. "We knew it was going to be on and we spoke about it all week, we just didn't go with them."
Despite having only 41 per cent of possession the Raiders looked set to break the Cowboys' 10-game winning streak. However, arguably the game's greatest player, Johnathan Thurston broke their hearts. In the dying seconds Sia Soliola charged down two of Thurston's field goal attempts, but his third found the mark. The loss was a massive mental blow for the Raiders, who subsequently went down 30-8 to the Warriors in Auckland the following week. "You don't win 11 games in a row if you're not a good team, I think we're a better football team after that game than we were before it," Raiders coach Ricky Stuart said. "I'm disappointed for the players because they're broken-hearted in there after the effort they put in. They won't understand that right at this moment, but we will get so much out of that."
In a match plagued by several controversial refereeing decisions, the Raiders were sunk by a late field goal at home for the third time this year. This time it was the ice-cool Valentine Holmes who stepped up for the Sharks in the fourth minute of golden point. It was relief for the Sharks, who were denied a match-sealing try to Andrew Fifita in the dying seconds of regular time. The prop's attempt to ground a Michael Ennis kick was overturned by video referees Shayne Hayne and Daniel Irvine after it was sent up as a try by referee Ashley Klein. However, Raider Sia Soliola was penalised for holding back Fifita in the lead-up and Michael Gordon slotted the penalty goal to take the match to extra-time.
The Raiders built an early 18-0 lead by producing some of their best football of the year early in the game. They built pressure on the Cowboys, but after conceding a try to Michael Morgan just before half-time, the Cowboys capitalised on a wealth of second-half possession to run over the top of the visitors. "I don't think you can say we totally fell apart, it was a weight of possession," Stuart said. "At the 30-minute mark, they had 75 per cent of the footy. It wouldn't matter what footy team you're playing on the night, if they have 75 per cent of possession for 30 minutes of the game, you're going to be on the back pedal and doing it real tough, and that's exactly what it was."
If there there was a blueprint for how to beat yourself, this was it. Despite a completely dominant performance by their pack, a lack of composure, patience and poor errors cost the Raiders dearly. The shock loss put them four points outside the top eight with just four matches left. The frustration boiled over when David Shillington was sent off for headbutting Aaron Woods. "I can handle getting beaten, that's not the drama, I just feel sorry for them sitting in there when they shoot themselves in the foot like that," Stuart said. "We've had that many times this year when we should have learnt from those experiences and we haven't."
