Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has defended his team after a 20-18 loss to the Wests Tigers on Monday night.

“They’re a brand new team, when we get into tough periods of the game we’re not good enough to close it out,” Stuart said.

“We’re too impatient, we want to score off every set of six instead of playing percentage football. When you lose those types of games through a lack of discipline and being impatient, that’s the frustrating thing.

“I can handle getting beaten, that’s not the drama, I just feel sorry for them sitting in there when they shoot themselves in the foot like that.

“We’ve had that many times this year when we should have learnt from those experiences and we haven’t.”