Raiders coach Ricky Stuart called out the lack of consistency with officiating after his side’s 34-16 loss to the Cowboys on Friday night.
The first 30 minutes proved to be fatal for the Raiders as they gave away too many penalties, with the Cowboys taking full advantage of the poor discipline on the way to a 22-0 lead at halftime.
While Stuart acknowledged his side did themselves no favours, however, could not help point out a specific example, when speaking to reporters after the match.
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“Go and have a look for yourself at the three minute mark when Danny Levi gets penalised for off-side. Do yourself a favour and take a look,” Stuart told reporters in his post-match press conference.
“It would have been half a foot over, so by the rule book it’s off-side.
“But then we get I think it was four six agains on their goal line. I don’t know what constitutes a player to be binned.
“This is not (an excuse), they got us. They won the game in the first 25-30 minutes by us giving away cheap field position, but if Danny Levi’s is off-side, why aren’t all the other offsides getting done?
“And I don’t want (referees boss Jared) Maxwell ringing me and saying the referees set a trend at the apart of the game because the trend ain’t working.”
When asked if he felt if both teams were “ill-disciplined” throughout the game, Stuart fired back.
“You watched the game mate. You’re the journo, you write what you see,” he said.
Stuart was then quizzed about the boos from the crowd with Canberra trailing 22-0 at the break.
“I’m not out there with the fans at halftime,” Stuart shot back.
“We’re trying. You think we’re trying to lose at home? We’re trying to do everything to win games at home.”
The Raiders and Cowboys were both awarded seven penalties for the game while Canberra had seven set restarts to North Queensland’s zero.
Stuart went onto to infer that he didn’t believe each half was officiated to the same standard.
“That type of discipline was happening right throughout the game. The ill-discipline that we got pinged for, and I totally agree with some of those penalties, but that was happening right throughout the game,” the Raiders coach said.
“Does the interpretation of ill-discipline just stop does it?”