Stuart blasts refs on penalty count

AN irate Ricky Stuart has blasted inconsistent officiating after the Raiders kept their top four hopes alive, having survived one of the craziest first halves of the season to claim a 26-14 win over the Warriors.

The teams combined for five tries in the first 40, with Stuart throwing a bottle of water out of the coach’s box after fiveeighth Jack Wighton was sent to the sin bin for repeated infringements.

The Canberra coach was furious with the 7-1 penalty count at the time, questioning why his side did not receive similar calls when they had the ball.

He likened the stop-start affair to a game of rugby union, before turning his attention to NRL head of football Graham Annesley, who will deliver his weekly briefing on Monday.

“I wasn’t happy with too much. It was a shocking game,” Stuart said.

“Would that have been the same decision if it was a semi-final? I hope not, because he (Wighton) wasn’t offside. You can’t make that error.

“Graham Annesley is a really nice man, but in regards to rugby league, we are planets apart.

“Thank God COVID is in, because we won’t get any more than 6000 (fans) to these games.

“They’ll do their review and then go into hiding with their results and it’ll be game-on next week.”

Tensions were already high following some niggle between John Bateman and Isaiah Papali’i, while Josh Papalii was penalised for a scrum scuffle and then for pulling Tohu Harris’ hair in a fiery opening to the game.

Any hopes of a soft run to the finals were quashed inside the opening minutes, and the Raiders could feel the effects of Sunday’s clash in the coming weeks.