Wests Tigers coach Jason Taylor says his team "got what we deserved" after watching his side surrender a 22-0 lead to go down to Canberra on Sunday.
With a fierce southerly behind them, the Tigers crossed for four tries inside the first 25 minutes to build what looked to be an unassailable lead.
However the Raiders scored 30 unanswered points over the final hour of the match to hand the Tigers their biggest collapse in almost 15 years.
"Disappointed, but in the end we got what we deserved. An NRL game goes for 80 minutes and we've been talking about that," Taylor said post-game.
"And we want to be more consistent over the course of that 80 minutes. As a club and as a team, we identified that right at the start of the year. It wasn't going to happen overnight and it's still what we need to improve."
Halfback Luke Brooks almost stole the win when he pounced on a Robbie Farah grubber in the 76th minute, but the referee ruled that the Tigers skipper had committed a shepherd in the lead-up and it was confirmed by the video referee.
Taylor said the officials had made the correct decision.
"That's the rule. You can't run around your own player and gain an advantage. I think the line kept moving, so you could argue that we didn't gain an advantage, but the fact that we scored a try at the end of it, I suppose that's an advantage, isn't it?" he said.
"We don't practice to run around the back of each other. So for me that was a sign that we weren't playing what we practised.
"And that's how the game went: when things were going well for us, we were doing that but when it got tough, we lost our way on that. And that's where we're at. That's what we're working on. We're clearly still a way off in relation to how we play and where we want to get to as a team."
The turning point for the Tigers was the two tries they conceded before halftime that shifted the momentum back into Canberra's favour.
"The way we defended before halftime wasn't good enough, simple as that. We worked hard to rectify that in the second half. And we did," Taylor said.
"But that wind was really tough. It was probably those tries that we let in before halftime that really came back to hurt us, because that was as strong a wind as you could play in.
"You saw from the kicks that were going in, it was really tough. We got some results because of that, and they were going to get some results because of it.
"So letting those two tries in before halftime was disappointing. It's that consistency that I'm talking about. Yeah it was great to score those points, but we need to defend our line harder than we did. Those tries were too easy."
