HOW does a coach go about getting his team ready to beat the competition leaders?

Well, apart from the obvious - such as addressing specific defensive needs, and devising intricate tactics and special attacking plays that need to be perfected during the final days leading into the match - his most significant job is preparing the team mentally.

The troops need marching orders. They need to know everything they can about their enemy. They need to be realistic concerning the difficulty of the task. More importantly, they need to know the truth about themselves.

The players need to know exactly where they're at with their football and if what they're doing is honestly good enough to take on such formidable opposition.

This mental preparation is what gives your men the fire in the belly and the courage to take on the challenge with the necessary confidence and see it through to the end.

The Wests Tigers' mental preparation for yesterday's game against the high-flying Gold Coast Titans began the minute they left the field after their win over Newcastle the previous Sunday afternoon.

Despite running away with that game, when the players returned to the dressing rooms at full-time for a quiet drink and a winning song, they were confronted with an angry coach who proceeded to tear strips off them about their lacklustre performance.

Tim Sheens was so angry that the wily old coach wouldn't even let his men sing the team song in celebration.

He told them their football was rubbish, individuals were letting themselves and their teammates down and if they dared to turn up and play like that against the Gold Coast they'd lose by 40 points.

Now, Mr Sheens wouldn't have said those things nor acted that way if he didn't think his men were capable of better. If they were a team of kids high on potential and low on experience, he would just roll with the punches and continue the painstaking and time-consuming development of his players in a much quieter fashion.

However, Sheens and the bulk of this team have been together a while. He knows them well and he knows which buttons to push.

With his tirade and brutal honesty, Sheens immediately had their attention and I would suggest the rest of the week pretty much went according to plan.

By the time the Tigers took the field in front of a big home crowd yesterday afternoon, they were itching for action.

Sheens probably also had in the back of his mind that the Titans were ready for a fall. It's no good wasting such a big preparation for a regular-season match unless you really believe you are capable of scoring a big reward.

The Titans have enjoyed a wonderful start to the season and deserved their lofty position on the competition ladder, but in the past couple of weeks they were starting to look a little tired.

If anything, yesterday's match came at a good time for Sheens because he rightly suspected his team was perhaps on the start of an upswing in form; the Titans had shown signs that a mid-season downturn was at hand.

The Tigers exploded out of the blocks early in the game and totally dominated the first exchanges. They quickly ran to a 12-0 lead and everything was going according to plan.

The Titans, though, refused to buckle under the assault and made a significant statement about themselves in the way they kept fighting to get back into the contest.

They went down swinging yesterday, and had a couple of the 50/50 bounces and decisions gone their way, they could easily have won the game. In the end, they ran out of time but not admirers.

You learn more about your team from your losses than you do from your wins.

The Titans have only had their colours lowered three times this year, but I suspect coach John Cartwright has walked away from those losses armed with the knowledge he coaches a very special group of men.

Certainly, he would be far happier with his team's losses than Mr Sheens seems to be with his team's victories. Coaches are funny people aren't they?