Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has called out NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo over the competition’s officiating and says he no longer understands the rules of the game.
Stuart was seething following a 40-12 loss to the Sea Eagles on Sunday and suggested his players were unfairly targeted by referee Grant Atkins.
Canberra was on the wrong end of a 7-1 set restart count and they had only 25 per cent of the possession in the first after completing just 6/12 sets.
“I’m not allowed to talk about the ref but I hope Andrew Abdo has an answer for us all,” Stuart said.
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“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.”
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Stuart believes the match turned when the score was 0-0 in the 20th minute and his side had a try disallowed for obstruction.
About 90 seconds later, Canberra prop Corey Horsburgh was sin binned for a professional foul and Manly scored five tries in the next 15 minutes.
“I’ll sound like an idiot but… defensively we did a sound job,” Stuart said.
“In the first half they scored two tries from dummyhalf and we had a player in the bin… and two off kicks out of the 30 points.
“They should have been up by 50 or 60 at halftime. Well done, they won and we didn’t but I just don’t get the first half.
“They’ll tell me (the sin bin) was correct, it doesn’t matter. I’m better off now answering these questions. That was massive.
“What did you think of the decision to have our try disallowed? After 20 minutes of having no football, we get a set around halfway and score a wonderful try… It’s really difficult coaching when you don’t know the rules and don’t know the interpretations because I’ve got no idea.
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“My ballplayer was hit late, we want to make defenders defend this year, that was what the rule was when Wayne (Bennett) and Ivan (Cleary) and I sat down with Ashley (Klein) and Andrew (Abdo) and Graham (Annesley) but that’s gone out the window.
“I wasted two days coming up here. I don’t know (the rules) and there’s a lot of other people that don’t know either.
“We want to make defenders defend. My ballplayer got hit after he passed, if that was a couple of other players, I know exactly where the penalty would have went.
“The whole game changed there.
“We’ve got another tough road trip but we’ll bounce back, I’ve got all the faith in the world.
Something has changed this week and I’ve got a great idea of how.
“I feel for the players.”
Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold was asked his thoughts on Stuart’s comments but he wouldn’t be drawn on the topic.
“I’m not going to comment,” Seibold said.
“I haven’t listened to what’s been said so it’s not for me to comment on.
“We were on the wrong end of the penalty count last week over in New Zealand. Again, I’m not sure what’s been said but I’m not going to make any comment on it.”
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