Tigers coach Benji Marshall believes his side copped two harsh sin bins in their 32-28 loss to the Cowboys, as he praised Lachlan Galvin’s replacement in the halves.
The Tigers trailed 32-6, before putting on 22 unanswered points to nearly pull off a miracle comeback.
Marshall was disappointed his side got themselves in that position, but believes the Tigers were not helped by sin bins to Jarome Luai and Adam Doeuihi.
“I was really proud of the effort for the boys to fight back into the contest,” Marshall said.
“We gave ourselves a chance there. A few opportunities we missed at the back end.
“I’m proud of the way we fought. We just have to address some things that got us into that position.
“There are things in our control that we can be better at, but there were also things that were out of our control like the two sin bins I thought were pretty harsh.
“The Nanai try going up as a no try and it came back down and he overruled the referee, which I thought he took our player out.
“So there was a couple of things we can’t control, but there is definitely things we can improve on to not be in that position, but again proud of the fight.”
Marshall believes it could have been a different game if the Tigers weren’t reduced to 12 men twice.
“The game is hard enough playing 13 on 13, so playing 13 on 12 is hard,” Marshall said.
“Being on the end of a lot of penalties and six agains hurts too, so we were constantly defending.
“I think we had 40 per cent possession in the first half and completed real low, so that didn’t help.
“We have just got to stick together. There were things in the second half we can take away around playing positive footy and be upbeat about those things.
“But also identify what we need to work on and be better at those things.”
Marshall was full of praise for Lachlan Galvin’s replacement at No.6 Heath Mason, who finished with 112 metres, five tackle busts, two offloads, two linebreaks, a linebreak assist and a try.
“I thought he was great tonight, to be trusted into five-eighth,” Marshall said.
“He has played all his NSW Cup at fullback, so to get an opportunity in the halves it is a big task to come into the front line and defend and I thought he was great in defence.
“And then he brought us a lot of spark and energy with the ball, so really proud of how he went tonight.
“He was just tired at the end because they fought so hard to come back and he was everywhere on the field.
“Happy with the way he went, but obviously we would have loved to get the two points, but a lot of improvement.”
Pressed on whether Mason was his long-term five-eighth, Marshall said he did his chances no harm against the Cowboys.
“He is definitely one of our options,” Marshall said.
“We have got Latu Fainu coming back pretty soon too, but Heath did himself a lot of favours tonight with the way he went.”
Tigers skipper Api Koroisau echoed his coach’s sentiments on Mason.
“I love him man, he is a ball of energy,” Koroisau said.
“He works really hard and he came up with some big plays for us.”
Koroisau was buoyed by the Tigers’ fightback in the second half, despite the heartbreaking defeat.
“I think it does soften the blow a bit, it shows what we can actually do when we play our style of footy,” Koroisau said.
“But it is still disappointing to come that close.”
Marshall revealed the Tigers will be without Alex Twal next week after he suffered a category one concussion and conceded it hurt his side’s bench rotation.
“I just saw him in there and he didn’t look too good, but obviously it is a category one, so we will lose him next week and then we will assess from there,” Marshall said.
“Losing a middle early changes your rotation a bit and you have got to play a lot of people out of position.
“I played Brent Naden at back row tonight and Alex Seyfath had to go to middle, so there were a lot of moving parts, but they just got through it.”
