Coach Andrew Verrell, or “The Doctor”as he is known, was still left frustrated despite his side getting home 53-31 and jumping up to fifth.

“We did some great stuff but we also did some horrible things,” Verrell said.

The source of his frustration was the amount of errors.

Not just handling errors but pushed passes, poor kicks and ball security.

“We gave them 14 (points) out of their 17 in the first half,” he said. 

The first try was a poor read in defence, with Rams half-back Soni Halanukonaka dummying from the back of the ruck and drawing the Pirates defence out to the right before drifting straight through the gap.

If that had him frustrated, their second did even more, with Rams five-eighth Andrew Topetura stealing the ball straight out of Tony O’Connor’s grasp and racing away before linking up with Eddie Cordingly.

Not surprisingly, Verrell had some stern words with his players at half-time, the gist of which was cutting down the errors.

“We made a contract about valuing the ball and plugging the holes and trying to get someone getting over the gain line,” he said.

They did suffer from a lack of penetration.

That was summed up by the period they were camped on the Rams’ line early in the second half.

They peppered the Rams’ defence for about 12 phases but found no way through and eventually knocked on.

“I thought Walcha defended well. Some of their scramble was pretty good,” Verrell said.

In saying that, their attack was a bit stagnant. There wasn’t a lot of deception with runners.

What he was pleased with was the lineout.

He was also happy with the scrum and thought  they did improve in the second half.

As did the Rams. 

“We had to improve our game and we did,” co-coach Barry Hoy said.

With the wind behind them in the first half, he said they needed to be in front, but just made “too many turnovers”.

They virtually gifted Pirates their first try and bombed a couple of their own.

Their biggest downfall though was their lineout.

“Disgraceful” was the term co-coach Andrew Crawford used.

“I think we threw about 20 in and won two,” he said.

It robbed them of good opportunities and at other times put them under pressure.

They also ran out of legs in the last quarter, having only two subs.

“But we stayed committed,” Hoy said.

“The last try we scored was the best try all day.

“It was a good team try.” 

Cordingly finished it off to give him two for the game.

Their try earlier in the half was similarly typical of what they can do, with Newton receiving a kick return from Pirates just inside his half and bursting straight through before finding Halanukonaka in support.

Both were among their best along with props Ross Fletcher and Sam Martin.

For Pirates, it was hard to go past four-try hero Conrad Starr. Verrell thought Jack Shelton and Andrew Wynne also had strong games.