Lessons learnt: Lenihan confident Titans can bounce back

Jim Lenihan is confident his Titans team can bounce back and upset the Cowboys despite the last month of rollercoaster results in which culminated in a disappointing display against the Roosters last Saturday.

With a continual focus on effort, the Gold Coast fell away from their intentions in the opening 40 minutes to be on the wrong end of a dominating 36-18 full-time scoreline, but the interim coach wants to quickly move on from the dour showing and concentrate his side's efforts on mentally preparing for a strong comeback when they take on North Queensland.

But pushing ahead and forgetting the result hasn't meant not taking anything away from their Round 21 performance.

"We learnt a lot of lessons out of last week," Lenihan said.

"Like we've been saying now for a little while, we're a team that's going to keep evolving and a big part of that is not just what we do physically in the way we play our game, but also how we mentally hold ourselves and our mindset.

"We've worked hard and we've had some really good performances over a five-week period and then last week, it sort of popped a little bit, but that's not an issue... failure is not an issue, it's getting on with it and rebuilding. We've got to put the wheels back on the wagon and give it a push.

"We know the direction we're going, we know what's going to work for us and where we have to take it and that's what we've just got to keep doing."

Having honed in on rewriting the wrongs from last week, Lenihan's squad has been reluctant to focus their attention too much on their opponents, knowing if they can make a few small tweaks to their own game, a successful showing is likely to come much like their previous month before the tricolours.

"We're really looking at ourselves this week," he said.

"I think the biggest thing we did was we let ourselves down a little bit with ill-discipline in our yardage defence, giving away too many penalties and not making the Roosters work out of their own end.

"This week, our real big focal point is just about us narrowing our focus and what we can control and do better."