Knights coach Adam O'Brien: We can't be satisfied with this

The Knights bowed out in week two of the NRL play-offs on Saturday after a 40-10 loss to the Warriors at Mt Smart Stadium, an anti-climactic finish to the club's best season in a decade.

And while O'Brien was proud of his team's effort as a whole, after they won nine consecutive games to qualify fifth in the play-offs, before eliminating Canberra in an extra-time thriller, he is clearly in no mood for them to rest on their laurels.

"We can't just walk away from this season," O'Brien said after the game.

"We have set some high standards. We need to go at it again.

"Just being content with this, that's not good enough.

"We need to make sure that when we come back for pre-season, we build on what we have done the last two or three months ... the key now is let's just keep going. We're at the start.

"We were never going to build it straight away, but we've taken a good step in the right direction."

O'Brien said the disappointment his players showed after losing their first game since the round-17 clash against Penrith on June 24 was a good sign.

"It's hard at the moment, because we've set high standards, and for us to just be OK with that, given what we've done for the last 11 weeks, well that wouldn't mean progress for the club at all, so I'm glad that it's hurting all of us," he said.

"But as I said to the team, in time we can look back and they've done a pretty good job.

"We've been going at it for 12 weeks now without a break.

"We've had some big games in amongst that, and I'm pretty proud of what the playing group have been able to do, coming from 14th to give ourselves a chance.

"But we just can't start games like that. We got away with it last week, but we were running on empty at the end. We've got some busted troops there."

Depleted by the absence of halfback Jackson Hastings, prop Daniel Saifiti and back-rower Lachlan Fitzgibbon, the Knights produced a dreadful start that gifted the Warriors a dream 16-0 lead.

They reduced the deficit to 16-10 early in the second half before the home team, urged on by a delirious 26,083-strong crowd, ran in four unanswered tries.

"It's funny because we didn't deserve to end like that, but we deserved to end like that," O'Brien said.

"The way we started the game, we applied way too much pressure to ourselves with our discipline."

O'Brien said reports that he had agreed to a contract extension with the Knights were "premature" but he hoped to discuss his future with the club after some time off.

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