Gold Coast forward Agnatius Paasi says his team lost any chance of beating the Warriors when they failed to trust each other's decision-making late in the second half.
After competing well for the majority of Saturday night's clash in Auckland, the Titans fell away in the final quarter as the Warriors split their line wide open on two occasions to score long-range tries via Shaun Johnson and Bodene Thompson.
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Speaking to NRL.com after the match, Paasi said they were defensive mistakes which simply shouldn't have happened.
"There were too many errors and we just didn't trust each other," Paasi said.
"It's just guys shooting out of the line, and then others having to come in and fix it.
"We have just got to trust each other more and finish off those games.
"Those are the [areas] we know we have got to fix, and we have got to learn to take those games and dominate for the full 80.
"Obviously we didn't do that and that is a tough loss to take."
Titans coach Neil Henry said his side had no-one but themselves to blame for the late collapse, lamenting key errors which led to tries and repeat sets.
"We were a victim of our own ill-discipline at times," Henry said.
"A couple of penalties and a couple of errors coming out of our own end.
"I think the whole second half we really didn't have any field position, I think we had one, maybe two attacking sets that whole period.
"[To give up] three tries, an intercept and two from scrum set pieces was disappointing... in the end I suppose we just gave up the field position and they [the Warriors] were too good."
It was a torrid night on the injury front for the Gold Coast as well, with Greg Bird and Cameron Cullen having to leave the field for concussion tests in the first half.
While both of those players returned to the field, Ryan Simpkins was unable to continue in the match due to a head knock, while they were forced to play with 15 for the final half an hour, after Karl Lawton suffered a sickening ankle injury in his NRL debut.
The 20-year-old centre was stretchered from the field and taken straight to hospital in Auckland, with initial tests suggesting he suffered a broken ankle.
Despite the attrition rate, stand-in captain Ryan James said it was no excuse for failing to get the result.
"You can't really blame it on people going down, we have got the fitness behind us," James said.
"It just came down to ill-discipline and not being able to hold the ball.
"We sort of shot ourselves in the foot, we didn't play very well tonight, we didn't hold it together."
Meanwhile James also joined the chorus of praise being sent the way of Warriors back-rower Simon Mannering, who celebrated his 250th match.
"That's a massive achievement and he is just one of those players that is consistent week in, week out," James said.
"He is highly respected in the player community and he is genuine nice guy as well."
