Under fire Dragons coach Anthony Griffin responded to the pressure surrounding his job after his side were on the wrong end of another frustrating loss to the Raiders.
The Dragons had their chances, but were guilty of some crucial lapses in their 20-14 loss to Canberra that heaped more pressure on Griffin’s position as head coach ahead of a crunch board meeting on Tuesday.
“Mate, I don’t really have anything to talk to you about that, I don’t create that,” Griffin said.
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“I’m just more worried about our players and getting them over this and getting into the next game.
“The commitment has never been not there. It is a really tough couple of weeks when we put ourselves in a position to win two games, so that has never been an issue.
“We have just got to play better at vital times on both sides of the ball.
“They will turn it around they are a good team.”
However, Griffin conceded his side are their own worst enemy at crucial times, despite being proud of the effort of his players.
“It is frustrating, we were really brave there for long periods in the game, but we just lost control of it early in the second half,” Griffin said.
“In the context of the game, a couple of soft tries I thought, we fought our way back in but we just weren’t good enough.
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“It was a funny game, I think both teams weren’t at their best, but defensively they covered up everything and in the end we completed at 60-odd per cent and didn’t take our chances when we needed to.
“That first 20 minutes of the second half the way they got their two tries went against us with the defensive effort we came up with all day.
“Then they steal a ball at the end and we just did enough to get beat.”
Griffin admitted his side have to be better with their ball control if they went to win tight games.
“We focus on ball control every week and we have just got to be better at that,” Griffin said.
“If we execute a bit better in attack, we are in a better position at half-time.
“Instead of four points, I thought we deserved a bit more.”
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Canberra Raiders Press Conference | 03:52
A dejected Dragons skipper Ben Hunt labelled his side’s attack ordinary after a clunky display against the Raiders.
“For most of the game we defended really well, they had a lot of possession in the first half,” Hunt said.
“We defended well, but conceded a couple of soft tries and our attack, I thought it was pretty ordinary.
“We probably created enough opportunities, but just didn’t execute them.
“For the majority of the games we are playing pretty well. We are having lapses at crucial times, giving away penalties at the wrong times, making errors, we are just costing ourselves.”
Hunt believes his team are trying their hearts out amid the conjecture surrounding Griffin’s future, but errors at crucial times are costing them.
“We have been pretty committed for the last few weeks,” Hunt said.
“We have showed we have been scrambling hard for each other, but again just silly errors.”
In a bright spot Griffin was happy with the form of fullback Tyrell Sloan, who put in his best performance of the season.
“Sloan has been going really well and I thought he was great today,” Griffin said.
