Answers demanded

Mareeba coach Chris Sheppard wants a meeting with FNQRL match officials after two questionable tries and several dubious penalties were called in the Gladiators’ loss to Kangaroos.

The Gladiators’ young side battled bravely but fell 32-4 against a Kangaroos side which was slow out of the blocks, but found their groove to win comfortably.

Sheppard was full of praise for his young squad, with as many as 15 players from Saturday’s night’s team aged 23 years or under.

But he wants clarification on a number of decision he said had gone against the Gladiators in recent weeks.

Sheppard was flummoxed by the awarding of two tries, with Kangaroos hooker Robert Clarke celebrating a try between the posts but Mareeba claiming he was short of the line, while the coach spied a knock-on in the playthe-ball which led to representative prop Aidan Day’s barnstorming four-pointer.

Replays of Day’s try show the ball appearing to come off a Mareeba player’s foot in the play-the-ball, though Gladiators players and staff were adamant Clarke was short of the line.

It’s left Sheppard, a former Mareeba title winner who played 65 NRl games and steered the Northern Pride to their first premiership in 2010, asking for answers.

“I have actually asked the refs and we have to have a chat, but it feels like the teams at the bottom get those calls all the time and we have to find out what we’re doing differently,” Sheppard said.

“We don’t understand it at the moment, and we haven’t had a response so we don’t know what to do.

“We have to learn the lesson, we have to be better when we can be better, but we just need to understand what the issues are so we can fix them. We don’t know what the issues are.”

Sheppard has faith in Mareeba’s young side, which features a number of the region’s best young talents including Cain Hastie, Kyan Sheppard, Ryan Flegler, Gabriel Tunimakubu and Hubert

Elu. “There’s a lot of green shoots there, we just have to refine it so we can go for 80,” Sheppard said.

“We haven’t been great off the stop-start stuff.

“Where the game stops for a few minutes, or halftime or something else, we’re not mentally prepared to go again. We need to be ready.

“We’ve improved steadily since we played them (three weeks ago).”

Round 6 is FNQRL’s rivalry round, with Mareeba to host Atherton at Davies Park on Saturday night.