Ill-discipline costly, says Titans coach Gold Coast coach John Cartwright praised the never-day-die attitude of his players after they came up just short in a 25-24 NRL defeat to the Warriors in Auckland on Sunday. But he also lamented their lack of discipline during the third quarter, when the Warriors scored two tries to jump out to a 24-6 lead. He said the overall performance was a reflection on how "patchy" the sixth-placed Titans have been over the past month. During that stretch, they have won two and lost two, including being beaten 30-6 by Newcastle in the previous round. But they didn't give up. They kept chasing to the end," Cartwright said of the loss to the Warriors. As a coach, you admire sides who do that. But probably the first 20 minutes after half-time was like our last 20 minutes last week - just ill-discipline - and the game got away in that period. Apart from errors hindering their cause early in the second spell, the Titans also had bench forward Dave Taylor put on report for a lifting tackle on Feleti Mateo. Cartwright said he was disappointed with the result, given that it was game that the Titans had banked on winning. The Warriors' first try after half-time had a question mark over it. Halfback Shaun Johnson seemed to bat the ball forward over a defender to himself on purpose before scoring. Cartwright's reaction was that he would need to consult the rule book, but he believed Johnson should have been called back. "I'm pretty sure it was a no-try," he said. If it's not a no-try, it should be a no-try. I would have to clarify the rule, but I'm pretty sure that there was an incident where it happened a few years ago and they changed the rule that says you cannot gain an advantage from tapping the ball forward.