Wests Tigers head coach Benji Marshall has no interest in copping a fine for talking about refereeing decisions, despite controversy rearing its head during Sunday evening's narrow loss to the New Zealand Warriors.
The game chopped the Tigers back to a two and two start for the year, with the joint-venture unable to close it out after being ahead heading into the final 20 minutes of the contest.
In a difficult night for the Tigers, they had two tries disallowed in the final 20 minutes, and the Warriors were awarded a match-winning penalty goal on bunker intervention when Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad was deemed to have been hit high by Alex Seyfarth almost 40 metres out from goal.
โYou were watching the game, you write whatever you think. I don't want to do what Ricky [Stuart] did and risk getting fined by talking about the ref because we aren't allowed to, so I won't bring it up,โ Marshall said when asked about the decision.
Pressed further, Marshall continued to play with a dead bat.
โI don't think we are [allowed to talk about decisions]. There is nothing more to say. If you were there watching, you know," the coach added.
The Tigers, who fell by just two points, had to scramble throughout the game, with Adam Doueihi suffering a groin strain in the warm-up and being unable to take the field.
Samuela Fainu was then taken off early, leaving a reshuffle for the Tigers, which included 18th man Latu Fainu being forced to play in the middle third of the field, while Jack Bird shuffled to centre.
Marshall confirmed Fainu's knee injury was too early to provide an update on, while the hope is that Doueihi will be fit for next week.
โHe had a bit of a groin strain in the warm up, so fingers crossed he will be okay for next week,โ Marshall said on Doueihi.
โObviously we lost Doueihi before the game, Samuela went off early. We had Jack Bird playing centre, Sione Fainu playing back-row, we had to bring Latu off the bench to play middle. Terrell played 80, Fonua played close to 70. Some massive efforts from a few of our lads.
โAs a coach and a club, really proud of the effort even though we got no favours today, that was pretty obvious.
โWe will move onto next week and take the good things out of today.โ
The Tigers have a six-day turnaround before they clash with the Brisbane Broncos on the road next weekend.
