Wests Tigers coach Jason Taylor has urged his players to find much-needed toughness following their 18-16 loss to the previously winless Newcastle Knights on Sunday.
After making a strong start to the season with back-to-back wins the Tigers have now slumped to four straight losses.
"I just want us to be tougher. That's the simplest way of putting it. We need to train tougher, we need to be harder on each other at training and we need to be tough on the field," Taylor said post-game.
"It's easy to say it was a lack of execution but for us it's more than that. We're trying to play a style of football that can't be sustained in the NRL. We're trying to finesse our way to victory in games and we have been doing so the past few weeks.
"It's not going to get us to where we want to get to, we need to toughen up. That performance was just not good enough from us.
"We're talking about where we want to play at the moment and we want to be tougher but we're not doing it at the moment. We have to start doing it or else we won't get to where we can."
Tigers skipper Aaron Woods shared his coach's sentiments.
"I think at times we looked good out there but in instances we tried to be pretty," Woods said.
"We weren't tough enough to rip in and play off the back of that. We're just trying to score off one big play. It's just not good enough for first-grade footy."
Taylor also said handing the Tigers a greater license to thrill this season had nothing to do with several of his players making "soft decisions" over the past month.
"We have developed things into a situation where what we're doing in attack suits our players, but it has nothing to do with our decision-making when the time is right,” Taylor said.
"At the moment we're making soft decisions that put our whole team under pressure and it's just not one or two players. We have a number of players doing it and that's why we are where we are and the reason we have lost four games now.
"What we did in Round 1 and 2 was good footy but this is the NRL and opposition teams know we're going to put that stuff on them. When they handle it we have to be able to stick at it."
