Wellington are determined to atone for last weekend's disappointing loss to Manawatu when they travel to Auckland this weekend, says second rower Jeremy Thrush.
The Lions were out-played and out-muscled by a committed Turbos outfit in Palmerston North and just as frustrating as the lack of attitude from his side for coach Andre Bell was their inability to stick to the game plan.
Instead they tried to run themselves out of trouble rather than play for field position from which the forwards could set a platform to attack the Manawatu line and unlike the previous week against Northland this time they came unstuck.
The run at all costs mindset from the players has been an ongoing issue for Wellington this season and one Thrush admits must be rectified at Eden Park this Saturday.
"If we get a chance we want to have a crack but I think we're just trying too hard to have a crack too early on," the lock said.
"Last week the forwards weren't doing the role we wanted to. We needed to take it up a bit more a let our backs play the wide game.
"It's not hard to fix and the beauty of it is that we've got this week to fix it and redeem ourselves."
He added: "We have to take control. We do it all during the week but when we're on the field we can't wait for Andre or Wattie [assistant coach Richard Watt] to tell us at half-time things aren't going right.
"It's not happening at the moment and we've got to take control of that to make sure things go the right way."
Both Wellington and Auckland have a four win, two loss record from the opening six games and are still in the play-off hunt despite their mixed fortunes.
In many respects their seasons have mirrored each other with Auckland getting their wake-up call against Canterbury two weeks ago and bouncing back to defeat Taranaki last weekend.
Thrush is hoping for a similar outcome for his side this weekend.
"While you don't want it to happen [to lose], I guess if it had to happen it's not a bad time for it to happen so we can kick on with the rest of the season."
He was also adamant that Wellington remain title contenders in spite of their lacklustre performances.
"A couple of years ago we had a bit of a rough patch and came through it. It just clicked.
"I’m not saying we're just waiting for it to click … I just feel there's a long time till the semi-finals and a lot of games ahead and a lot of good teams that we can play and prove ourselves against."
A disappointed Bell has not ruled out making changes to the starting line-up on Saturday.
"We are putting the onus back on the players but obviously there has got to be accountability and decisions have to be made about who is going to play," he said.
"[It's frustrating] the way they didn't implement our game plan, just a lack of passion and the hardest thing is that they got out-muscled by a team that wanted to play. We didn't want to play.
"At the end of the day it came down to the players themselves just not executing what we asked them to do."