ROYCE Simmons bemoaned Saints’ attitude and lack of enthusiasm following his side’s 27-16 reverse against Harlequins RL on Friday night.
He said he warned the team they needed to be competitive and have an aggressive attitude, but it was clearly unheeded.
He also shouldered some of the responsibility for not re-iterating this before the match.
“It was a very ordinary performance. The first half was very disappointing. We virtually had one session during the week because of England call-ups and I said despite this we needed to turn up with the right attitude and be aggressive because I knew we had to have both to beat a side that has had a good start to the season.
“But we didn’t compete and in the first 40 we were very poor. They turned up with lot of energy and desire and it’s my job to make sure they [Saints] have it… but they didn’t so we didn’t play too well and I didn’t coach it too well obviously.
“When you give 18 points away you need a lot of things to go in your favour… once we scored and got on top they got an intercept and that was the end of the game. You can’t consistently win games from 18 down.
“Their half backs turned us around as they were going 60 metres with their sets. We ran one up the middle and gave ourselves no field position particularly in the first half.
“It was a little better in the second – we had chances but hit lead runners who ran into heavy traffic and we would then try to pass the ball over heads. We needed someone to get hold of the ball and go round the back more then we could have scored a few more tries.
“But it really is as simple as this. They ran harder, played the ball quicker, tackled harder and were just too enthusiastic for us.
“We need to have a long hard think about what we are doing.”
