South Sydney coach Jason Demetriou says he’ll meet with NRL officials next week to complain about the standard of refereeing after he accused them of a lack of consistency in the ruck following his side’s 36-32 loss to the Bulldogs.
Demetriou was furious with some of the decisions on Saturday night, particularly the call to send Taane Milne to the sin bin for a shoulder charge which saw Bulldogs forward Ryan Sutton stretchered from the field and sent to hospital for scans on his neck.
Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo said the English prop was “in good spirits”, but the focus will now turn to Milne who has been charged many times throughout his career.
Watch every game of every round of the 2023 NRL Telstra Premiership Season LIVE on Kayo Sports. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
UFC 290 | SUN JULY 9: It’s an Aussie Takeover in Vegas for one of biggest fights of the year. UFC Champ Alex Volkanovski takes on Yair Rodriguez and fan favourite Rob Whittaker returns to the Octagon. ORDER ON MAIN EVENT ON KAYO SPORTS >
But Demetriou is adamant the veteran has nothing to worry about when the charges are released on Sunday and was irate that referee Liam Kennedy upgraded the original call of a penalty to a sin bin after the Bunker looked at more replays while Sutton stayed down.
“Anyone who watches that can clearly see that the injury doesn’t come from Taane Milne,” he said.
“I’ve got my contacts in so I’m pretty sure I can see it, but there’s no way that comes from Taane Milne. It’s an accidental contact as he ducks his head, and you can clearly see that.
“It’s a neck injury, but for some reason we get a bloke in the sin bin because a guy stayed down. It’s unfortunate that he’s injured and I hope he’s okay.
“We’re just finding things to do. We’re finding ways to get people that aren’t even on the field to make big decisions.
“The live decision was what it was, but for whatever reason, we want to look at it again and again and again, slow it down, manufacture an opinion and send a bloke to the sin bin.
“We’re out there with more than half our cap missing and we can’t get a fair crack. I’ll be very surprised if Taane has got anything to answer for. Very surprised.”
The Rabbitohs were without Origin quartet Cody Walker, Cameron Murray, Damien Cook and Keaon Koloamatangi, while stars Latrell Mitchell, Campbell Graham and Jai Arrow were just some of the players out injured.
They did well to fight back from 14 points down with four minutes to go to almost steal the result, but just fell short on a night their coach accused the referees of failing to police the ruck consistently.
Get all the latest NRL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!
Bulldogs bounce back to defeat Bunnies | 02:22
MORE NRL NEWS
BIG HITS: Instant impact from Dogs recruit as Latrell replacement stars
‘STICK IT UP YOU KNOW WHERE’: Burton calls out fan’s ugly act during conversion
BIG HITS: Metcalf ‘blinder’ brings five-game winning run to grinding halt
‘PLEASE EXPLAIN?’: Souths hothead’s chaotic delayed sin bin for shoulder charge
The stats show that the Rabbitohs lost the penalty count 6-3, but Demetriou and Souths fans were furious with the lack of set restarts, with the Bulldogs able to slow things down in their opinion.
“I felt like we were on the back foot a lot of the time and there were a lot of inconsistencies around the ruck,” he said.
“I’ll go to the NRL again and have some conversations about that, but I feel like there’s no reward for us in the ruck.
“We’re constantly being controlled with extra efforts on the ground, and (we’re getting) very little, if anything. It’s a good discussion to be having again this week with the referees.”
Demetriou has spoken with the NRL this season but hasn’t been too impressed with their feedback.
“You just get excuses,” he said.
“You get ‘Oh yeah we understand that, we could have got that right’.
“I’m not talking about decisions here or there – I’m talking about consistency in the ruck.
“The number of times there are extra efforts or a push on the ground or working their way around the tackle, all the things that we say we want to speed the game up for and people say they want a faster game, but consistently we’re getting controlled slower in the ruck.
“Our ruck is consistently slower than anyone else, and it’s not like we’re fighting for it.”
Discussion about this post