Des Hasler and Ricky Stuart were involved in an indirect war of words over the standard of the refereeing in the Raiders’ 21-20 golden point win over the Titans.
Hasler took aim at the poor refereeing in his post match press conference after his side’s heartbreaking loss, which drew the ire of Stuart in the Raiders presser.
“I’ll be the first to say that we were ill-disciplined in parts, but my opinion, I thought the refereeing performance was pretty poor,” Hasler said.
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‘Thought the ref’s performance was poor’ | 03:14
“I think a lopsided penalty count, particularly in the area of 10 six-agains to one.
“Some of those are warranted, some of those I’ll buy. It just leads to just battling field position all the time.
“Possession ends up 60-40, yep, sure, some of that’s our own fault.
“But it’s difficult and I’m pretty proud of the effort and that’s why it’s heartbreaking.
“And I’ve got some doubt around the off-side nature of the charge down. Did they review it? They didn’t review it. Why not?
“So from that point of view, it was heartbreaking. But we’ll learn a bit out of it. And then we’ll go forward. We’ll get ready for next week. Dust ourselves off. We’re playing a Manly side that are playing pretty good footy at the moment.
Hasler was pressed on the off-side in the charge down on Kieran Foran’s field goal attempt in golden point.
“I think there was a merit to review it. I think it was probably a good metre offside,” Hasler said.
“Let’s hear from the hard running Graham Annesley, so hopefully he will have a better idea about it Monday morning.
“I think they will put forward a response anyway.”
Raiders rise in final seconds of GP! | 01:09
When informed of Hasler’s comments about the officiating in his press conference Stuart launched a tirade at his opposite coach.
“F**k me he’s on another planet mate,” Stuart said.
“If he is critical of the six-agains and the penalty count he is on another planet.
“I just said, he coached well. Him and Whitey coached well.
“But the way they cheated when they were standing there with the hand on the ball holding over the ball.
“The way they cheated on the ground. If we want to go back to last year or the years we have had. No worries, we will start cheating and start wrestling as well.
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“The games we have had, the game has been going real good without that type of wrestle in the ruck.
“I feel sorry for Kasey (Badger). The way they were in her face all night I felt sorry for Casey out there tonight.
“But she had to withstand a lot of pressure and I can’t believe we have lost the interpretation because we were told at the start of the year if you are going to be a repeat offender you get sent.
“You have a look at the amount of repeat offenders and the amount of extra seconds they got on the ground.
“I wasn’t going to mention this, but that is what I spoke to the players about after the game.
“I was so proud about how they stuck to their processes with the football because they could have got really frustrated tonight.
“You don’t cheat to win a fast play-the-ball when you have got the football.
“But if he thinks they got hard done by, by Kasey tonight he is on a completely different planet.
“And I tell you what I’ll do. I am going to make sure I ring (ref boss) Jared (Maxwell) tomorrow to find out who is right or wrong there.
“I thought Kasey did a really good job tonight. We should have got another 10 or 12 six-agains.
“The game has been a good spectacle this year, so if we are going to go back to that and I will be asking Jared.
“If we are going to go back to what happened tonight, fine we will do an extra wrestle session with Josh Miller every week. I’ll make that call.”
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