A furious Newcastle Knights coach Adam O'Brien has unloaded on referee Gerard Sutton and the officiating team who oversaw the Cronulla Sharks' victory over his side in the Shire on Sunday afternoon.
In a loss that almost certainly guarantees the Knights won't play finals rugby league this season, the men from the Hunter first spent ten minutes without Phoenix Crossland on the park who was sent to the sin bin for multiple infringements.
O'Brien challenged the consistency of the call against other ones though, and challenged anyone who agreed with referee Sutton.
"Shocked if any agreed. That was the third infringement for the half, so I think we had for offisde at a scrum, and we only had one for slowing the ruck down, and on the third one, he puts a bloke in the bin. Is that a harsh standard? That's the third infringement for the game and he goes to the bin. I haven't seen that all year. I was shocked. This team is fighting to stay in the competition, then you get that done to you? Like, fair dinkum," a fuming O'Brien said during his post-match press conference.
"I've seen teams you know, multiple times [infringements on their tryline] on their tryline, then usually they get warned that they are going to go. He went there on the third penalty. Like, fair dinkum. It's ridiculous."
Cronulla Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon went on to admit he understood why O'Brien - who had more than one gripe with the game - would be frustrated.
O'Brien also took exception with field goals being disallowed. Both sides had one knocked back by referee Sutton for blockers being in the way of defenders attempting to get to the kick taker.
The Knights' coach said it was ruled differently to how it was explained to clubs in the pre-season, but suggested the NRL's head of football Graham Annesley would find a way to dress up the incident.
"No, and I thought theirs was a field goal as well. They came up over the summer and said as long as the person is in an on field position to receive the ball [they can stand there]. In our case, it was Mat Croker. If the nine doesn't pass to our field goal kicker, if he passes to Croks, it's not a forward pass. It's an onside position and that's how they explained it to us, but Graham [Annesley, the NRL's head of football] will find a way to dress it up," O'Brien said on the field goals.
Fitzgibbon agreed with O'Brien, but admitted he didn't have a solution.
"I probably agree [with O'Brien]. I didn't think there was probably an obstruction line for any of them. I thought the guys had clear lanes, but if you start opening that up as well, guys will just run into them [the blockers] and milk them. I don't have a solution at the front of my mind, but I didn't think that either were blocked," Fitzgibbon said.
O'Brien, whose side now need results to go their way to make the finals, admitted he was disappointed in the way his side started, and let their foot off the gas after getting back ahead of the game.
"Very [hard to take]. It's going to make it hard now. We probably need to rely on some results now we dropped that one," O'Brien said.
"I thought I wasn't happy with our first ten minutes. We didn't start well, but I was really proud of how they regrouped and certainly for the most part of the first half and big parts of the second half, we had full control.
"I thought we managed the period without Phoenix in that ten minutes very well, but it does take its toll on you gas wise, then we went something like one from seven. We just made so many errors in one area of the game and that's the disappointing thing. We had two hands on it, we had full control, and we released it."
The Knights play the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Gold Coast Titans and Dolphins over the final three weeks of the season.
