Griffith Blacks 19

A NEAR-suicidal pass from Griffith on its own try-line has gift-wrapped the Young Yabbies a shock 24-19 win at Coro Club Oval on Saturday.

The major upset has seen the Blacks record back-to-back losses for the first time this year, and has put a serious dent in Griffith's Southern Inland Rugby championship title campaign.

After being thumped 35-0 by Albury last round, Blacks captain Luke McKay said turn overs in attack lost it for them against the Steamers.

Those same sins came back to haunt Griffith on the weekend as they handed Young enough chances for them to grab the vital competition points.

McKay, while devastated with the result, said his side should have been further ahead on the scoreboard when the decisive intercept pass was thrown.

"We weren't effective enough at the breakdown," McKay said. "We weren't securing the ball as cleanly as we should have. We should have had another four or five tries and we should have closed them out. It was the tries we didn't score that lost it for us."

Following the back-to-back losses for the once table-leading Blacks, McKay said the whole team needed to go back to basics and rebuild their game if they were going to make a comeback this season.

"We've got to get our game plan back," he said. "We're going back to the absolute basics and starting again. We've got to start playing simpler footy. We're trying to play a bit wider and a bit faster than we are able to keep up with."

In what was a sluggish start to the game for the Blacks, the Yabbies crossed out wide to open the scoring 5-0 and with the bulk of possession, the visitors enjoyed seeing them break through.

The Blacks hit back with some decent second-phase play, which saw Leon Tiere crash over to take the lead 7-5.

But while the breakdown continued to be an area of concern, the Blacks' set pieces were attacking weapons all day with Tiere again the beneficiary after a maul from a line-out saw Griffith take the lead 12-5 into the break.