The Melbourne Rising prevailed over Canberra Vikings 60-44 on Sunday in a high-scoring shoot-out at Viking Park in their National Rugby Championship clash.
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The Vikings were able exhibit their flashy brilliance with ball in hand on a dry pitch at home, but coach Wayne Southwell said their poor kicking and inability to exit their defensive half created too many chances for the Rising.
The return of Isaac Thompson at fullback provided an authoritive kicking option out of defence, but the Rising capitalised on their field position and pushed away to a solid early lead.
Their bulky forwards were well complemented by skillful passing, but the Vikings' own forwards were again powerful in the scrums and rolling mauls.
The Vikings eventually tidied their lineout and wreaked havoc with ball in hand, and suddenly Josh Mann-Rea had two tries and the half-time score was 20-12 in favour of the Rising.
The two then traded blows in the second half playing physical and entertaining rugby until a dangerous tackle by Vikings winger Lausii Taliauli put him in the sinbin and gave the Rising breathing space.
Melbourne captain Tom English put through a grubber kick, collected, scored his hat-trick and a game-sealing try.
A frustrated Southwell said his side made poor decisions early and gifted momentum to the visitors late.
"It was a game we should have won," he said.
"We need to be a little bit more focused on what type of kick we're looking at, and it is just really disappointing because there was patches of what this side can do and there were patches where we just relaxed and let them back in for some soft tries."
Southwell spoke earlier in the week about the need to start games more effectively but the Vikings again spent the majority of the first half defending their line.
"We showed glimpses of brilliance with the ball but we need to have brilliance in defence as well," he said.
"When we do get in to their attacking half we're scoring 90 per cent of the time. It's just that we're not up there enough in the game."
The Vikings slip to fourth on the NRC ladder with two games remaining against the Sydney Rays and Perth Spirit.
MELBOURNE RISING 60 (T English 3, L Johansson 2, A Toolis, S Jeffries, S Tuipulotu, J Debreczeni tries; Debreczeni 3 cons) bt CANBERRA VIKINGS 44 (J Mann-Rea 3, S Carter, I Thompson, T Staniforth tries; Thompson 4 cons).
