Jeez that's an ugly and deflating loss.
After showing some improvement and promising signs last week, this really brings us crashing down to earth and it looks like it will be another long year for the Broncos. Fifita scoring 2 soft tries just makes it sting extra.
It could be said that a 12 point loss against a probable Top 8 side following an 8 point loss against a top 4 hopeful last week is respectable, but make no mistake, the Titans had the cue in the rack by early in the second half and they just cruised out there... the scoreline flattered us in the end.
One of the few positives to take away are that I thought we actually looked pretty sharp for the first 20 mins... We looked solid, committed and like we knew what we were doing. We killed our own momentum pushing stupid passes / offloads in what looked like the team 'lacking patience' (Flanagan raised this in his commentary analysis and I think it was spot on). These kids so desperate for a win they're trying the flashy miracle plays and there's clearly no leader out there to take control and help the team get into the grind of the contest and wear the opposition out before trying to score points. We were like a boxer who came out swinging for the home run shot from round 1, instead of building momentum behind our jab, fatiguing our opponent and picking our moments for a big shot. Its symptomatic of a young, inexperienced, under-siege team with NO quality halves, NO captain and NO experienced, hard, old-heads to lead the way.
The only other glimmer of hope I can scrape together is that at least we didn't fold completely... I get the feeling that if this was last year we would have collapsed entirely in the second half and had 40-50 put on us, so that is at least some small consolation.
There's no quick fix solution for this roster... It's going to be a long way out of this hole. Let's hope the boys can get a win next week to build back a little self belief and confidence.