Daly Cherry-Evans can't think of a worse NRL game he's played than Saturday's 46-4 loss to Sydney Roosters, but that's the good news because the only way now is up.
Immediately after Saturday's thrashing, the Manly skipper watched the replay on his couch at home over a cup of tea and a KitKat to figure out where it went wrong.
The answer was: everywhere.
"I've definitely been guilty of that in the past, trying too hard," he said on Tuesday.
"I just wasn't executing and it might look all the same to everyone, which is fine, but there's big difference in me overplaying my hand and just not having a good day and unfortunately I just didn't have a good day in kicking, passing, running and even tackling.
"Luckily I've had a few of those in the past so I know how to bounce back.
"I had one last year against the Dragons, I had some big errors, three in the first half but this was just an overall bad game.
"(No other game) pops to memory but I haven't started a season off like this for a while, so the positive of that is that it can't get much worse."
The Queensland skipper, a veteran of 237 NRL games, said he often watches losses because even though it's hard he learns from them.
"Games like that are harder to watch than they are to experience," he said.
"But you've got to know what happened to know how to fix it.
"One bad game in round one isn't going to determine my season. It never has and it never will."
After re-watching the horror loss to the Roosters, Cherry-Evans said it was obvious the side had a poor attitude in defence and it won't happen again against South Sydney on Saturday afternoon.
But one narrative out of the humiliating loss did not surprise him.
Reports surfaced on Monday that coach Des Hasler was fighting to save his career, but it has since emerged the club legend is on the verge of re-signing for the next two seasons for potentially his final contract as an NRL coach.
"(Was I) shocked and surprised, do you know what? Not in rugby league anymore," Cherry-Evans laughed.
"Honestly you just go, what? Round one and he's under the spotlight? It doesn't get much better than that, does it?"
