Wyong Roos beat Cessnock 26-18 as Goannas suffer first loss of Newcastle RL season

The loss is the Goannas first of the Newcastle RL season and despite a second-half comeback, they were unable to reel in the 20-0 half-time deficit.

The loss leaves Cessnock second on points difference with Wyong third, having lost one game more.

Goannas coach Harry Siejka said Cessnock were ambushed by the Roos and credit needed to go to he home side.

"I think we probably touched the ball two or three times in the first 20-25 minutes, couple of penalties, couple of errors," he said.

"We were probably a little bit behind were we normally have been, especially our starts, they've been really strong.

"We just probably got ambushed a bit going down there, we started a bit slow and they came out really good, they played a good game."

Goannas winger Honeti Tuha was sin-binned in the opening 10 minutes which placed further pressure on the visitors. The Roos scoring points while he was off the field.

Siejka said he thought a penalty was sufficient.

"You don't like to blame decisions, but probably hurt us a bit at the time where we were under the pump a bit, it just sort of added a bit more pressure," he said.

The Goannas were able to reset after half-time and mount a late comeback.

"In the second-half we got 10 points within seven minutes or something like that and we were looking really good, our defence was really good and then we just made a few crucial errors," Siejka said.

"We showed a lot of resilience to get back into it and that's the mindset of the players.

"We were never flustered or anything behind the line, it was just a matter of getting back to how we wanted to play and executing that.

"But we just probably missed out on that last pass a couple of times."

Siejka said the side will quickly move on from the loss and concentrate on crucial fixtures ahead. The Goannas travel to play an improved Souths next Sunday, June 4 before hosting Central Newcastle the following week.

"In my opinion you learn more from a loss than what you do from winning, it's probably been coming for a long while - we played some games and probably didn't deserve to win but we snuck home," he said.

"So the mindset now is to get into training Wednesday and really rip in, we've got another tough game against Souths and Maitland in a couple of weeks - It doesn't get any easier for us."

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