Sorry no help: Cowboys
“OF COURSE robbed.”
Cowboys’ supremo Laurence Lancini has blasted poor refereeing decisions at the weekend that cost the Cowboys in a golden-point thriller against the Tigers.
The club chairman was fired up over the decision to award a Tigers try in the first half, which NRL football director Graham Annesley admitted was wrong in his weekly briefing yesterday.
It is the second week in a we were row that Annesley has had to extend the olive branch to the North Queensland club over refereeing decisions that have decided matches. But according to Lancini, a post-round apology does not count for much.
“Sorry doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t give us two points on the ladder,” he said.
“We shouldn’t have let ourselves get in a position where the referee’s decision could cost us the game. (Regardless), I feel sorry for the fans and our supporters. They are the ones that passionately support our club and our team.”
It has left the Cowboys in a tough predicament, with only six wins from the opening 14 rounds of the competition. But if those results were reversed the club would be entrenched in the top eight, sitting even with the fifth-placed Knights.
While they could lament poor decisions, Lancini said the club needed to move forward and play the football they were capable of.
“It is disappointing for the club, for the fans and for the players but it doesn’t change our position,” he said.
“We have just got to get out there and play football. We can’t go dwelling on the past and dwelling on referees’ bad decisions.”
Lancini was not the only one to fire up over the blunder, with Thuringowa MP and Cowboys supporter Aaron Harper savaging the referees on social media.
“Robbed of NRL competition points again,” Harper said. “Our (Cowboys) are working their guts out with a full casualty ward of players.
“I call bulls--- on the refs decision. They have effectively taken four comp points off us and that will have an effect on the finals for sure.”
Cowboys coach Paul Green was in Sydney yesterday with the NRL Competitions Committee, which met for the first time this season to discuss issues including a rise in unsafe tackles.
Also present were Penrith Panthers coach Ivan Cleary, NRL Immortal Mal Meninga, Darren Lockyer, Clint Newton, former coach Martin Lang as well as NRL CEO Todd Greenberg and ARL Commission chairman Peter Beattie.
Green was on earlier this week, where he hit out at the unsafe practices.
“I’d be very surprised and really disappointed if people were actually coaching that particular (crusher) style of tackle,” he said.
“I think it has manifest itself because of some of the types of training you have to do in terms of body position, trying to get control and trying to slow the ruck down.
“I would be disappointed if anyone is coaching that, because it is clearly dangerous to the point where you could seriously hurt somebody.”