A "massive wake-up call" - that is what CSU coach Dom Huggett has labelled his side's 61-12 loss to Narromine a fortnight out from the Ferguson Cup finals.
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CSU went into Saturday's match against the Gorillas at University sitting second on the ladder and still a chance of clinching the minor premiership.
As a pair of Ash Bridge tries had the students out to a 12-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, things looked on track for CSU.
But in the 30 minutes which followed, Narromine ran in 61 unanswered points as their forwards counter-rucked well and created space for their back line talents. It saw CSU drop into fourth on the ladder and regardless of what happens in the final round coming Saturday, they will not climb any higher.
"It fell apart a bit," Huggett said.
"We didn't have Rachel [Brown] or Laura [Belfanti], which are pretty big outs, but in saying that they should be able to get the job done without them.
"So I think it's going to be a pretty big training session this week, we need to push ourselves out of the comfort zone, really test ourselves mentally and see if we really want it.
"We're good enough, the first quarter we were trying hard, we tackled well we were doing everything right, but as soon as it got a bit tough we fell off. So that needs to be fixed.
"We need to be more secure with the ball, we need to have a stronger presence."
Huggett said the turning point of the match came three minutes into the second quarter. His side was on the attack inside the Gorillas' 22 when the ball went to ground.
Narromine fullback Beth Stace twice soccered the ball along the ground before picking it up and running away to score between the sticks.
"That's what I like to do, that's why I love rugby so much, you can really take advantage of people's mistakes, but they punished us," Huggett said.
"We were going for our third try and threw a terrible pass. They kicked it, picked it up and scored - 70 metres effort. That shows we need to have that urgency and cut out the laziness."
