BEATEN SAINTS TAKE DEFEAT ON THE CHIN

His words summed up the pervasive feelings in the St George room.

They had played quite well, not their best, but quite well.

But Brisbane were considerably better.

St George did not squander a lead; they weren't the victims of a decisive refereeing blunder; they weren't beaten in the final minutes.

These are circumstances which make grand-final losses unbearable instead of merely shattering.

When the siren sounded, the players despondently shook hands with one another, then slumped to the ground to watch Brisbane's euphoria.

Coach Brian Smith walked to them, spoke first with Goldthorpe, then with Brad Mackay, then Mick Potter, and so on through most of the side.

There was nothing wrong with St George's tactics. They were adventurous in possession, and had success bombing Brisbane fullback Julian O'Neill .

At half-time, there was confidence in the room. "Yeah. We were going to win. We were talking about winning," Smith said.

But class eventually told.

Tactics and high emotion can contain superior talent for only so long.

Like the other 14 sides in the premiership, St George don't have a man as good as Allan Langer.

For Langer to play as he did, after a week of hearing how St George must stop him, confirms he deserves to be talked about with Peter Sterling and Wally Lewis as one of the three best players of the past decade.

For second-rower Alan Cann, who wasn't mentioned for his attacking prowess in the million words of grand-final preview, to score two individual tries was a resounding demonstration of the exhilarating power of the Broncos' attacking machine.

A gracious, patient and dignified Smith praised Brisbane and their coach.

"If I can be indulgent for a second, I shook Wayne Bennett's hand (after the game)," Smith said.

"I said to Bennett I was really pleased for him, because (late) last year we pinched a game off them at Lang Park, and there were a lot of people who were screaming for his head.

"And the Broncos management showed a lot of faith in him. It's taken him five years to put that team together. They play without ... oh, they've got a couple of dubious blokes, I suppose, the way they tackle ... but generally they play the game hard and tough, and it's pretty to watch."

A few of the St George players offered technical theories for the loss.

Goldthorpe said they had resolved to try and beat Brisbane by attacking them, but had forced too many passes, which allowed Brisbane too many attacking opportunities.

Fullback Potter said: "Perhaps our kicking game wasn't as good as it has been over the past couple of weeks."

Some of the kicks lacked distance, he said, and the chasing game, which the team had been so proud of against Newcastle and Illawarra, was also disappointing.

Potter criticised himself for being pushed over the sideline after fielding a kick in his in-goal. Langer scored his second try a minute later to take the Broncos to a 12-4 lead.

"That was a bad mistake by me," said Potter, who was being harsh on himself since he had done remarkably well to get out of his in-goal, and the only way out was to run near the sideline.

To a line of questioning which painted the Potter incident as a turning point, Smith said: "You won't get me making any criticism whatsoever of Mick today, or any day. He's a great player."

Smith's technical explanation for the defeat was borrowed from Potter.

"Potsy just said to me every (Brisbane) set of six felt like 10 or 12 tackles, because they milk so much out of it," the coach said.

"Probably the big thing for us today was our inability to pin the ball in the tackle. They off-loaded too many passes and that's a recipe for disaster when you play the Broncos."

He did not appear to support Potter's opinion of the kicking game, saying: "Our kicking game was a bit like how we played generally: we had a couple of dud ones, and we had some good ones as well."

Goldthorpe's soaring bomb in the first half was definitely one of the good ones, and one or two more of them might have been interesting; but St George had faith in their ability to score running tries.

When Brisbane performed their scoring spree, Smith rung numerous personnel changes aimed at catching up-not, he insisted, for the purpose of giving all the reserves a taste of a grand final.

"Winston Churchill, mate: 'Never give up'," he quoted.

The coach told two stories of the day which made him feel good about St George.

In the minutes after full-time, Ivan Henjak, who wasn't used yesterday, had walked among the despondent players offering comfort and encouragement.

Wally Fullerton-Smith had been offered the chance by Smith of finishing his Sydney career by playing the last 10 minutes of a grand final, but declined because he thought it would be unfair to replace Matthew Elliott .

"They're the sort of things that make a club great," Smith said.

Smith, who has two years at St George, said the club was losing some talent(Peter Coyne, Fullerton-Smith, Henjak), there was uncertainty as to whether Mick Beattie would play another year, and negotiations had not started with Guy Picken. But he was optimistic about the future.

"We'd like to think we've got better times ahead," he said. "We're in year two of our development. The Broncos have taken five years to put that team together, and it's one that everyone in rugby league should be proud of."

The St George President's Cup side narrowly lost its grand final, but Smith was encouraged by what he saw.

"Some of the boys, the ones we're counting on, are good players," he said.

"We may have one buy for next season-it depends on negotiations over the next couple of weeks-but, basically, we'll have the same blokes who went around for us this year.

"Wayne (Bennett) has built a team, slowly but surely, and he's built it on positive play, on the skill of his players, on teamwork. And we're doing some of that-maybe a little bit more."