Ill-discipline again reared its head as Kempsey Cannonballs suffered their second-successive Upper Mid North Coast Rugby Union defeat at Crescent Head on Saturday.
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Injuries cruelled any chance they had of upsetting Hastings Valley seven days ago, but coach Jared Fuller said they had no such excuses for a 20-15 loss at the hands of Coffs Harbour Snappers.
"Discipline is a huge issue and I don't know how we fix it," he said.
"It's one of those things which is about player accountability and we can talk about it, talk about it and talk about it, but until guys start making better decisions out on the field, it's not going to change."
The Cannons again gave away penalties at inopportune moments of the game which left the coach frustrated.
Too many times they helped Snappers out of their own end.
"Good teams don't do that and we've got to learn to sustain pressure for longer periods of time and at the moment we let teams off quite easily, quite regularly," Fuller said.
"I don't question the effort. We've got a young side and they're ripping in every week, but we've got a bit of work to do around a few areas.
"Our contest at the ruck was not really that good and that's something that needs to be addressed. We've got some work to do at scrum time as well. Our scrum was second-best at the weekend."
Lewis Tyne and Harry Mainey were impressive in a beaten side, but they simply had no-one else helping them out.
"Harry and Lewis are doing the hard stuff week in, week out and we just need a few other guys to go with them," Fuller said.
Snappers were playing their third game in seven days after a catch-up match was played on Tuesday night and it was why Fuller refused to use the Cannons injuries as an excuse.
They lost Nathan Phillips for the season with a knee injury along with Misimoa Tavete who tore his bicep against the Vikings.
"Everyone's dealing with injuries, I don't feel like that's something that is unique to us," he said.
"Full credit to Snappers. That was their third game in seven days, so we've got no complaints compared to them having to back up three times within a week and being able to grind out a win.
"At the moment we don't know how to grind out the hard ones."
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