https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/...m-players-following-warriors-belting/?cs=2503
KNIGHTS | Coach Adam O'Brien to conduct honesty session with his squad after Warriors debacle
BARRY TOOHEY
Newcastle Knights
Adam O'Brien will gather all his players together at some stage today for their weekly post-game review where he'll be looking for answers to one simple question.
All the Knights coach wants to know is why.
Why his footy side, with so much to play for after working so hard to put themselves right in the thick of finals contention, was humiliated on Saturday by the Warriors in Tamworth.
"I'm going to need answers from the group on Monday," O'Brien told the Newcastle Herald.
"I want to know why we think we can turn up like that. Why is it the three o'clock games, why is it the teams below us, why do we think we can just turn up and dip a toe at the start and expect everything will happen for us.
"Why? That's what I want answers for and we might be there for a while if we don't come up with something."
O'Brien's reaction to his side's dismal 36-6 defeat is understandable. He genuinely believed there were positive signs his players had conquered their mental demons in recent weeks after dismal loses to the lowly-placed Cowboys and Bulldogs earlier in the season.
Then they go and dish up that five weeks out from the finals when a top four berth is still within reach.
It felt like the back-end of 2019 revisited. Their simple errors to start the game and the disinterested defence at the death even had a stench of 2016 about it without the excuses.
The opening 40 minutes against the Cowboys in Townsville was poor but this was the side's worst performance under O'Brien.
Take nothing away from the Warriors, they were exceptional. Everything the Knights weren't. They respected the footy, continually mounted pressure and had the brilliance of the likes of fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck to produce the killer blows off the back of a whole lot of dominance.
Not surprisingly, O'Brien struggled to come up with one positive from the game.
"We gave away eight penalties and made 11 errors in the game, and we'd conceded 14 off-loads by half-time," O'Brien said. "They are pretty telling stats.
"I'm not pointing the finger at anyone because right across the board, we needed to be a whole lot better than that - everyone.
"It was the basics of the game - hanging onto the footy, making your tackles and sticking your contact. Just being everything we said we wanted to be at the start of the year.
"I didn't see any of that right from the start of the game. If you want to turn the ball over, you better defend well and we didn't do that. In the end, we got what we deserved."
O'Brien said he didn't see a performance like that coming.
"The build-up was good, they were saying the right things about it being a big game but our actions didn't back our words up," he said.
"I need to know why. If we want to get something out of the season, we have to make it happen, not expect it to happen."
