Coach Trent Robinson has taken aim at the officiating of the Sydney Roosters' loss to Manly and praised his side for not being deterred by what he believed were poor refereeing decisions.
Chief among Robinson's grievances was a 6-0 penalty count in the second half of the Sea Eagles' 18-16 win at Brookvale Oval, with the home side also awarded the only set restart after halftime on Sunday.
The penalty count finished 8-3 in Manly's favour and the set-restart count 3-0.
Four of the Sea Eagles' second-half penalties were for dangerous tackles, while the Roosters were also twice penalised for a player being offside downtown, a rare penalty awarded to a player attempting to gain too much of a head start on their kick chase.
"We weren't going to get anything tonight," Robinson said.
"You could see that there was not going to be any call or any assistance there. I think it was 7-0, the penalties and sixes again in the second half.
"So we were just going to spend time on our goal-line defending. We weren't going to get anything coming off our line.
"They were obviously the perfect team in that second half."
Robinson also questioned why referee Ben Cummins ruled Corey Allan had thrown a forward pass to Daniel Tupou in the final five minutes when touch judge Casey Badger, closer to the play, had deemed the ball legal.
Down by two points, the Roosters had been streaking down the left edge when the forward pass was blown, ending the attacking raid.
"Casey, the touch judge, didn't call it. She kept going, said it was fine." Robinson said.
"Ben called it from a poor angle. He called it forward but the touch judge, who was right in line, didn't call it."
Robinson also accused Manly captain Daly Cherry-Evans of a "ball-plant", an illegal move where a player places the ball down before regathering their footing for a play-the-ball.
"They went on to score a try. They changed the rule at the start of the year," Robinson said.
"That's why I felt like we were awesome.
"I felt like the boys kept dusting themselves off and kept attacking again and defending what they had to defend. But in the end we weren't good enough."
