Maguire rues missed opportunity following loss to Sharks

A disappointed Wests Tigers coach Michael Maguire has shared his frustrations following his side’s 50-20 loss to the Cronulla Sharks on Saturday afternoon.

Missing a chance to close in on a top eight finish, Wests Tigers weren’t able to match it with the Sharks, leaving Maguire to rue the missed opportunity.

“It was really disappointing, to be honest,” the coach said after the game.

“Did they think it was going to be easy or hard? I’m not too sure but it’s definitely not the performance we came here for.

“They needed to get the job done — it was as simple as that. The ruck was too quick, and our line speed was non-existent at times.”

Maguire said his players put too much pressure on themselves with errors and couldn’t take control throughout the 80 minutes.

“We put ourselves on the back foot — we could’ve fixed that, but we didn’t take control of the game,” he said.

“We put too much pressure on ourselves in the first half with drop balls and errors. We needed to be better in that department and take control.

“We had to think about the long game and not just the immediate play. At half-time we knew what we needed to do in the second half, but we didn’t deliver that … our defence let us down.”