We copped a 4–0 defeat at home to Gold Coast Knights, and there’s no dressing that up.
As the head coach, it starts and ends with me.
I picked the team. I coached them all week.
And we went out and produced the same mistakes, the same performance patterns, and ultimately the same outcome as the week before.
So I’m not going to sit here and point fingers anywhere else — it’s on me.
What’s frustrating is I actually thought we controlled large parts of the first half.
But you get punished for the basics you don’t do, and we’re not doing them well enough — in possession and out of possession.
We’re turning the ball over too easily, often under no pressure.
That decision-making then exposes us defensively, and we’re getting hurt.
They’re not complex issues — they’re fundamentals.
And right now, we’re not executing them at the level required.
I said last week we were repeating mistakes, and unfortunately we’ve done it again.
That tells me one of two things — either I’m not coaching well enough, or we’ve got players who aren’t learning quickly enough.
Either way, it comes back to me to fix.
We are a young group, there’s no hiding from that.
But being young doesn’t excuse not listening, not following instructions, or falling into obvious traps.
At this level, you have to take on information, apply it, and grow — and you have to do it quickly.
Maybe life’s been a bit easy for some of the boys. If that’s the case, it won’t be anymore.
There were a couple of small positives.
It was good to get Nathan Nguyen back out there after limited football over the past few years, and some of the younger boys who came on showed glimpses.
But overall, we’re judged on performances and results — and right now, they’re not good enough.
Confidence naturally takes a hit when you concede nine goals in two games.
But again, if you want to play at this level, you’ve got to deal with that.
You’ve got to respond, and you’ve got to respond quickly.
The reality is, I went with the same group and got the same outcome.
So now it’s on me to make the changes needed.
That’s selection, that’s approach, that’s standards — all of it.
We’ve got a big week ahead.
There’s a charity game midweek against the Solomon Kings, which is important.
Football is what we do, but there are bigger things in life, and if we can contribute in some way to people doing it tough, then we’ll do that.
Then we’re on the road to Brisbane City on Sunday, and that’s a tough assignment.
They’re a side capable of very good football, but like us, they’ve been searching for consistency.
Playing away on a Sunday is never easy — but at the moment, nothing should be easy for us.
We need to earn everything again.
I know which direction we’ll be going.
