Tigers get chance to convince top brass

WESTS Tigers officials have been granted an audience with ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys and NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo as they intensify efforts to reverse the result of their controversial loss to North Queensland.

It is understood that NRL head of football Graham Annesley wrote to Tigers chair Lee Hagipantelis over the weekend to offer the club the opportunity to sit down with the game’s foremost powerbrokers this week.

It shapes as the Tigers’ final and most important fling as they look to convince key officials that they were robbed of two points in their loss to North Queensland just over a week ago.

V’landys and Abdo will head into the meeting with a report that has been completed by the NRL. They spent the weekend digesting its contents following the Tigers’ controversial loss to the Cowboys, which was decided by a Valentine Holmes penalty goal when the 80 minutes had expired.

That report holds the key to the Tigers’ hopes of convincing the ARL Commission to take their protests seriously. The Tigers have hired high-powered lawyer Yaseen Shariff SC, who was part of Jack de Belin’s legal team in his quest to overturn the no-fault stand-down rule, to act on their behalf.

The ARL Commission has some legal muscle of its own. Alan Sullivan QC became a commissioner in February and it seems hard to believe that V’landys and Abdo won’t have enlisted his advice to help them navigate the situation involving the Tigers.

Sullivan was on the other side of the courtroom to Shariff during the de Belin saga, acting on behalf of the game.

At the heart of the dispute is the decision in the final seconds to award a penalty to the Cowboys that allowed Holmes to kick a penalty goal and win the game in Townsville.