After conceding 113 points in their last 160 minutes of football, Brisbane’s finals hopes sit uncomfortably on a knife’s edge with their for-and-against plummeting from plus-21 to minus 26, one point worse than Canberra who play Manly on Saturday.
If the Raiders beat the Sea Eagles, Brisbane will be out of the top eight before Sunday and face a must-win clash with St George Illawarra next Saturday.
Walters said the performance against the Eels was “terrible” and was made all the worse by the horror injury toll that included captain Adam Reynolds (concussion) in his 250th NRL match, Kobe Hetherington (concussion), Brenko Lee (hamstring) and Tom Flegler (throat) who was taken to hospital after having trouble breathing after copping an elbow in an attempted tackle.
Flegler was also put on report for a shoulder charge in a night to forget for Brisbane.
After missing 66 tackles against the Storm, Brisbane missed 53 against the Eels who had the game signed, sealed and delivered by halftime.
“It’s just disappointing for everyone. Obviously, we just need to fix our defence more than anything. Our attitude hasn’t been where it needs to be at this time of the year to compete against the good sides,’’ Walters said.
“I’m not going to make any excuses. It (defence) hasn’t been good enough.
Walters said the buck stopped with him.
“I take full responsibility. Obviously, it’s my job to prepare this team and get them ready to play each week so I take responsibility, I’m not shifting the blame anywhere,’’ he said.
“We want our team to perform well and we are not performing well…we don’t have too many answers at the moment, to be honest, but we just need to fix our attitude…our discipline. It’s a momentum swing and we are struggling to get it back,’’ he said.
