Reed Mahoney and Mitchell Moses have failed to come to an agreement over whether the Parramatta Eels' shock loss to the Canterbury Bulldogs on Monday afternoon was an "attitude problem."
The Eels had their pants pulled down by the Bulldogs on Monday afternoon, letting in over 30 points in a performance which saw Brad Arthur's team defend poorly and play even worse with the ball in hand.
It's the second time this year that the club have failed to beat a side at the bottom of the table, having handed the struggling Wests Tigers their first win in Round 5 on Easter Monday.
While the club might be asking the NRL for no more public holiday Monday afternoon games, the loss will come as a wake-up call to Arthur's side, who have struggled for consistency at times this year.
Despite that, Mitchell Moses told reporters on Tuesday that it was an attitude problem for his side.
"I think it's an attitude thing, going into the game and thinking it's going to come easily. Hopefully we've learned from our lessons," said halfback Mitchell Moses.
"It's more of an attitude thing and not trying to do individual things by yourself.
"When we play the top teams our 1 to 17 is on fire and against the teams everyone is expecting us to beat everyone is trying to do their own thing."
Mahoney, on the other hand, who missed out once again on being selected for the QLD Maroons' Origin squad behind the two-pronged dummy half assault of Harry Grant and Ben Hunt, said it wasn't an attitude problem.
Despite that, his comments seemed to reflect those of Moses - that the club simply hadn't turned up to Homebush on Monday.
"It's not an attitude problem, it just wasn't our day and we didn't turn up," he said.
"It happened once before when we came up against the Tigers. The good thing is we have talked about it and we can put it away now.
"It's things early in the game where we flow pretty quickly, we didn't have intent or patience with the ball and they capitalised on it.
"I wouldn't say any team is lower than us, we need to treat every team with respect and turn up."
Mahoney, who led his team for tackles with 48, is backed up by numbers, with the Eels struggling to turn possession and territory into points.
Despite having 44 sets with the football, the blue and gold only completed 32 in the contest, compared to 29 from 36 for the Bulldogs, while, making 13 errors to 9.
Parramatta will look to turn things around this Saturday in a huge clash against the Sydney Roosters. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:35pm (AEST).
“It’s not an attitude problem, it just wasn’t our day and we didn’t turn up,”
Hmm, isn’t that the definition of an attitude problem?