“Maybe I need to whinge about the referee” – Leeds Rhinos boss questions penalty count after Warrington Wolves loss

Leeds Rhinos head coach Brad Arthur has had his say on the officiating in his side’s 16-14 loss against Warrington Wolves with the Australian seeming to imply that if he had moaned more than his side would get more decisions.

Leeds were in the game until the final hooter which cut short their scrum and saw the match end in defeat, with the performance being hailed as “heroic” by Arthur who spoke post-match on Sky Sports.

Asked about his side’s showing, he said: “Yeah, very heroic, the effort in defence.

“The effort was great, the physicality was great, we scrambled, worked really hard near our try line but just in the second half there, there was a couple of penalties and errors that gave them field position.

“They had a lot of ball at our try line so yeah, we’ve got some things to work on but there’s definitely a football team there, we’ve just got to tidy up a couple of bits and pieces.”

“Maybe I need to whinge about the referee” – Leeds Rhinos boss questions penalty count after Warrington Wolves loss

Warrington Wolves mark the 5000th Super League game with a 16-14 victory over Leeds Rhinos 🙌 pic.twitter.com/pw8Rmd4cVZ

— Sky Sports Rugby League (@SkySportsRL) March 28, 2025

Whilst Arthur conceded that there was stuff to work on, his major complaints came around the number of penalties that his side conceded with the Leeds Rhinos boss appearing to suggest that some of them were soft.

He also was asked about Keenan Palasia’s yellow card five minutes from time for making head contact with Lachlan Fitzgibbon with Leeds conceding the game-winning try whilst down to 12 men.

On that sin bin, Arthur said: “I’ve seen plenty of those already in five, six rounds in so maybe as a coach I need to complain more and whinge about the referee and we might…

“We’ve worked really hard on our discipline and we can’t be the least penalised team in the competition throughout the first four or five games and then we come here tonight and get seven penalties in second half.”

Asked if Tom Grant was ‘pedantic’, Arthur said: “Well maybe some of the penalties were warranted against us but it just seems to be a lot compared to what we’ve given away already. ”

He would then confirm that Leeds Rhinos would not make an official complaint, responding: “No, no, we’ll just worry about what we need to improve and like I said we’ve had some ball down there at the try line and made some errors so we’ll just worry about that.”