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Mitch Moses was outstanding for the Tigers against the Warriors on Saturday.
 


The club's bright start to the year – high-scoring wins over the Warriors and Sea Eagles had them equal ladder leaders after two weeks – came about as a result of their talented young halves, Moses and Luke Brooks, playing their natural game off the back of a solid platform laid by a largely unheralded forward pack.

The wheels have hardly fallen off since, with the Tigers arguably the better team in stretches of most of their games, but drifting in and out of games and a few too many errors have proved costly.

"We're not going to rein it in at all," Moses said.

"Everyone's saying that we need to rein it in, and we've been dropping the balls. But we've put on enough points in the games to finish off games. It's just knowing when to just complete and get a kick away.

"Our last-tackle options haven't been too good the last couple of weeks. We're getting better at it but it's a work in progress. We're not going to rein it in at all. We've scored enough points to win games, we just haven't been able to finish it."

Against the Knights on Sunday the Tigers made a couple of high-risk plays, such as kicks out to the wing looking for a big reward, rather than getting back in the grind with the match still going down to the wire, leading to criticism from some quarters that the side may be getting carried away trying for all-out attack.

The message from coach Jason Taylor – who has consistently stressed the need for his players to make sure they get their defence right before going for attack – has not changed from the two big wins to start the year according to Moses, who said the coach was still happy for the halves to play what they see as long as the team is prepared to defend their errors.

"If you see something, you take it up. But it's being a bit patient," Moses said.

"If you see something, just knowing if you don't pull it off, you've got to defend it. We haven't been doing that in the last couple of weeks. We take care of that and it'll sort itself out."

Moses wasn't concerned the two opening wins had given the side any false sense of security or a mindset that it needed to attack its way to wins.

"[Those wins] came because of the way we trained in the pre-season. We've been putting enough points on to win games, it's just getting in that grinding mentality where we score a few points and then we thinking we have to keep scoring," Moses said.

"But that's the mentality we need to get out of. We just need to fine-tune that. It's taking care of the ball. Take care of the ball and it'll sort itself out."

Of the profligate plays against Newcastle on Sunday, Moses said it was a poor completion rate that was the reason the side couldn't force the result.

"We've got to complete and we weren't doing that. It's not what we have been doing the first couple of rounds," he said.

"We were doing that outstanding over the first couple of rounds, it showed when we won the first two games. We've got to get back to that mentality, if we do that, we'll be tough to beat."

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National Rugby League respects and honours the Traditional Custodians of the land and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and future. We acknowledge the stories, traditions and living cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the lands we meet, gather and play on.

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