Wests Tigers coach Jason Taylor has pencilled in 'feeding a scrum properly' into his training regime for the coming week, after his team lost the feed in a crucial moment of the game during their eventual 22-12 loss to the Knights.
Dane Gagai dropped the ball in his own red zone seven minutes out from full-time, and with a 16-12 scoreline in their favour, the Knights – in a throwback to yesteryear – won the scrum against the feed before heading downfield to score the match-sealer through NRL debutant Chad Redman.
A clearly frustrated Taylor labelled it "not good enough" immediately following his team's second-straight loss.
"Probably the most disappointing part of us losing that scrum when it was our feed was the way we reacted to it. We really dropped our heads, which I suppose is understandable but the game was still there," Taylor said.
"It's not good enough to lose a scrum. That was in our control and we lost it. I can't believe in 2015 that we're going to need to practise putting the ball into scrum at training but it seems like we will. "
Tigers captain Robbie Farah went on to provide a live recollection of the event, alluding to the fact the scrum should have probably been fed again, though wasn't offering any excuses.
"We tried to pack it quickly so we had guys out of position. I think [halfback Luke] Brooksy said one of the Newcastle guys struck at the ball and kicked it back into their legs, and rebounded back on their side of the scrum," Farah said.
"I'm not too sure whether it went in properly but the ref called play on – that's the rub of the green I suppose."
With the Tigers limited to just two tries throughout, despite being offered numerous chances to score, an honest Taylor went on to add that even though they did earn a scrum within the Knights' 20, they probably wouldn't have scored anyway.
"We hadn't put our stuff together as well as we would've liked in the game. It's easy to think we would've won the game from there but we had a couple of other opportunities and we weren't able to put it together," Taylor said.
"To be honest, we probably wouldn't have put it together, because why was that one going to be any different. We lost our way a bit with our control at the try line and that's disappointing."
It doesn't get any easier for the Tigers either as they look set to lose Farah and prop Aaron Woods for their game against a Johnathan Thurston-less Cowboys in Round 11.
