North Queensland caretaker coach Josh Hannay has blasted his side for the “boneheaded, schoolboy” and “unbelievably dumb” plays that cost them the win in their 31-30 fade-out to South Sydney.
The Cowboys thought they had secured victory when centre Tom Opacic soared to break a 24-all deadlock with six minutes remaining in Townsville on Saturday.
However, a poor defensive play resulted in the Rabbitohs crossing for a try, before a blatant strip by Kyle Feldt allowed Adam Reynolds to level the scores with a penalty goal soon after.
North Queensland then allowed South Sydney to march down field and concede the game-winning field goal to Reynolds, completing a remarkable comeback.
The Cowboys’ stunning capitulation prompted a furious Hannay to take aim at his charges in his post-game press conference.
“There’s a lesson in there in how to throw away the unloseable game,” he said.
“I’ll have to watch that last five minutes again but there were a number of individuals that just came up with some bonehead plays, just schoolboy, bonehead, not doing their job.
“It wasn’t one or two, there were a few there that, five to go, just, wow. It was just really bad.”
Hannay admitted a number of players had apologised to their teammates in the sheds after the match, but it was of little solace to the interim coach.
“I’ve heard us say the right thing for too long, but we keep going out there. I’m over us saying the right words and not doing it correctly on the field,” he said.
“I’ve heard some premiership-winning speeches from us as a group. They say some wonderful things. But man, talk about not backing it up.”
Hannay refused to describe their seventh straight defeat – their worst losing streak in 12 years – as merely a result of developing a losing habit.
“The last five minutes there was unbelievable. Unbelievably dumb and poor, from individuals in our team.
“And I don’t want to put that down to losing being a habit for us,” he said. The Cowboys were also left to rue a poor goalkicking night from Feldt, who missed his opening three looks on goal before finishing with three from seven attempts.
“Goalkicking clearly was costly tonight,” Hannay said.
“But I’m going to back whoever it is that’s our kicker to turn things around. “I don’t think it would’ve been great for Kyle’s confidence to strip him of goalkicking duties after those first three misses.
“And to be honest, we probably don’t have a true back-up option there at the moment.”