A week after losing to Canterbury 5-4 in a penalty shootout, the Dogs went down 2-1 to North Harbour in Dunedin.
Despite out playing Harbour, which has seven international players, for the majority of the match, the Dogs failed to convert a bunch of chances in front of goal.
After the scores were tied at 1-1 late in the final quarter, North Harbour hit the front when James Coughlan deflected the ball over Dogs goalie Tom Lysaght from a penalty corner.
The Dogs upped the ante to earn three last gasp penalty corners, but Harbour rebuffed their pursuit of an equaliser and held on for the win.
''It was gutting, obviously,'' Ross said after the match.
''The boys played really well for large chunks. I thought they dominated the opposition, which is a quality opposition, but in the end we were there but not quite enough.
''I guess the good thing about it is we gave ourselves a chance. At least we're making chances. Sooner or later we will nail some of those.''
North Harbour opened the scoring somewhat against the run of play 10 minutes into the match, when Nick Elder found himself in space and brilliantly rifled the ball past Lysaght from the edge of the circle.
It was a touch of class from the future Black Sticks squad member, who used a reverse stick shot to score.
However, the Dogs did not have to wait long for an equaliser, which came moments after Black Sticks striker Hugo Inglis came close to scoring for the home side early in the second quarter.
The equaliser was scored by Kieran O'Connor, who did well to deflect Blair Tarrant's brilliant ball into the circle into the top left corner of the goal.
Tarrant, who fired the ball low and hard into the circle from range, had a fine game for the Dogs. They almost went ahead early in the third quarter through Lum Richmond, who found himself open in front of goal, but he could not quite get on the end of the cross.
North Harbour came close to going ahead with the final play of the third quarter, but Lysaght saved the penalty corner stroke.
Ross said the focus for his team, which has two losses from its opening two games, would be on sharpening up in front of goal.
''We're creating enough. We just need to translate those into goals. Once we put goal pressure on the opposition, we have got a good enough defence,'' he said.
''Just a bit of calmness, some shot selection and maybe positioning. We're probably not quite aggressive or confident enough in there.''
The Dogs' next game is against the Capital Cobras in Whangarei on Saturday.
In yesterday's other games, Auckland beat Northland 4-1, Midlands beat Central 3-1 and Canterbury beat Capital 3-2.
