Ricky Stuart blasts NRL referees, calls out Andrew Abdo

Canberra Raiders head coach Ricky Stuart has put the NRL referees in the headlights, citing what he believes was a poor performance from Grant Atkins during his side's Round 3 loss to the Manly Sea Eagles at Brookvale on Sunday evening.

Stuart's side might have struggled in their completion rate, but they were forced into a world of hurt during the game, particularly the first half, where they only had a quarter of the football.

By the time it was all said and done, the green machine fell behind 7-1 on set restarts and 10-4 on penalties, with their possession only recovering to 36 per cent.

They finished the game with a 67 per cent completion rate, but only had 28 sets, while they also had 63 less runs, almost 600 less run metres, and had to make a staggering 406 tackles compared to Manly's 222.

Stuart said he hopes NRL CEO Andrew Abdo has an answer for the game's coaches and players, with any and all referee criticism outlawed for this year, and the NRL's head of football Graham Annesley's Monday briefings having been discontinued.

The coach highlighted the similar average play the ball speed between the two sides as one of the key reasons for his bewilderment at the standard of refereeing.

“I'm not allowed to talk about the ref but I hope Andrew Abdo has an answer for us all,” Stuart said during the post-match press conference.

“I don't think there's a football team in the competition that's going to defend at those statistics and win.

“If you keep having six agains go against you then you're not going to get the ball.

“When you look at it statistically, we had to make 212 tackles in the first-half and you can't be ahead on the scoreboard with that.

“When you look at the average play-the-ball speed, it was something like 3.54 for one team and 3.55 for the other team. So where's the inconsistency the play the balls there? How come it was 6-1 in the six agains?

“The six agains that go against my poor buggers, I see those tackles every week by certain teams and nothing is done. You tell me (why) because I'm not allowed to.”