It’s finally happened. After 19 long weeks, Simon Cron and the Norths players at the Sydney Rays have finally lost, bringing to an end a 16 match winning streak across the Shute Shield and the NRC.

“It bloody hurts, I can tell you that and I don’t like it,” Cron told Rugby News.

“It does hurt but win or lose, it’s more about the processes that get you there. The last couple of wins haven’t been that enjoyable. We’ve got the result but we haven’t nailed it. Losses will happen, but as long as we learn from it, we’ll survive.”

Cron’s Rays fell to their first defeat of the NRC season on Saturday, losing to the NSW Country Eagles 36-16 after leaking two late tries in the final minutes of the match.

Clearly disappointed with the result, Cron suggested the match was far closer than the score line indicated.

“We actually had a lot of opportunities and breached their line quite a few times but just couldn’t execute that last pass, we had four or five occasions when we should of scored but didn’t,” he said.

“If we took advantage of the line breaks that we created then that last 10 minutes would have been very different. I think we put pressure on ourselves through errors and that’s where we started to get in trouble.”

The Rays are now third on the ladder with three matches remaining but just four competition points separate second and fifth position.

The Sydney side has arguably the toughest road to the finals and will need to overcome a growing injury list if they are to play finals footy for the first time.

“We had Con Foley fail his concussion test, Angus Ta’avao still hasn’t played a game for us yet, Nick Palmer tore his hamstring off his bone and Cam Clark has fractured his cheekbone but I guess that opens the door for some of our other players.”

The Rays head north to play Brisbane City this weekend, then host an in form Canberra side before travelling to Melbourne to play a Rebels filled Rising side in the final round.

“We just need to take things one game at a time and we’ve identified a few things from the weekend that we need to improve and I’m confident that if we can do that, then we’ll get better. It’s about improving week after week,” Cron said.

“Melbourne will be a big challenge, as will Brisbane and Canberra will obviously be very tough, they are three franchises really so it’ll be a good challenge for our guys”

The coach admitted his side would most likely need two wins from their final three matches to secure a finals spot, which adds greater importance to Sunday’s clash against the two time defending premiers, Brisbane City.

“You don’t want to lose any game, particularly at this point in the season but obviously if we lose this week, we put it in the other sides hands so this weekend is important,” he said.

“If you look at some of the names, Brisbane have got a phenomenal side so our guys will need to be at their best but I think they’ll be up to it.”

While the Rays don’t have as much star power as their opponents, Cron said he had plenty of confidence in his squad.

“We’re right there, we just need to keep playing as well as we know we can. People probably look at the names in our side and think we’re the underdogs but ideally by the end of the season, they’ll realise just how good some of these guys are.”

“We’re still good enough to win it, that’s what we’re here for. We’ve only lose one so we just need to make sure we learn from that and get better.”