After scoring one try in their season-opening loss to Melbourne last week, Dragons pair Benji Marshall and Gareth Widdop wanted to tweak a few things in their attack at training – and coach Paul McGregor gladly obliged.
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"I just thought that our nought-20 sets last week wasn't good enough. And the players wanted to play with the system a little bit there," McGregor revealed after their loss to the Tigers last night.
"And we gave them ownership of that, which is good. They wanted to change a few things and we've got two international halves there that are very good players."
But whatever they worked on failed, as the Dragons again came up with a solitary try in their 22-4 defeat to the Tigers in Campbelltown on Monday night.
"We didn't win the game and the scoreboard was pretty poor, but when we did get possession down there, again, we had no energy," McGregor said.
"At the start [of the second half] we scored a try there, [but] Dylan [Farrell] led with the wrong shoulder and got called an obstruction off the scrum there. There were a few opportunities there we handed possession back."
Most of the damage was done in a brutal first half where McGregor's side completed just 63 per cent of their sets and committing nine errors. At one stage they were forced into making almost 100 more tackles than their opponents.
"If you look at last week [against Melbourne] we were at 84 per cent, and we played Warrington in the rain and in three degrees and were at 82 per cent. It's the first time we've turned over that much possession in our trials and the first comp game," McGregor said.
"We changed a fair bit in our attack through the week, we adjusted a bit – that might've had something to do with it – but at the end of the day it's about catching the ball under collision and we didn't do it well enough."
Hooker Mitch Rein said that while the side might head back to the drawing board in search for new points, he assured Red V supporters that it wasn't time to panic yet.
"Everyone knows how long the season is. We've just got to fix a few things at training and we'll be sweet," he said.
McGregor said he expected fullback Josh Dugan (ankle) to be back either for next week's clash in Canberra, or the following week against Manly.
