Paul Rowley set to face compliance board following referee comments

After the games between Leeds Rhinos and Leigh Leopards, Hull FC and Wakefield Trinity and Salford Red Devils and St Helens on Sunday there was one major talking point that dominated discussion on Sunday evening.

This was the comments made by Salford Red Devils boss Paul Rowley. His team had played very well against St Helens and led 15-2 but things went wrong as 6,500 fans watched on for the 150th anniversary game for the club.

The Red Devils lost 18-15 suffering a seventh defeat in a row and worsening their play-off hopes.

There were some controversial moments centred around a foot in touch missed from Tee Ritson and Matty Lees’ try.

After the game, Rowley branded official Jack Smith “a disgrace” and following this he is set to face the compliance board of the sport according to BBC Sport.

He said: “It’s so hard. If we’d have won the game, I’d come in and say probably exactly the same thing. I thought the officials were a disgrace. I think Jack, I’ve watched him on telly, he’s been a disgrace a few times this year, one for us at Warrington at home. So three games in a row now we’ve been absolutely let down.

“So clearly Kendall and Liam Moore are the best two refs who get all the cup finals, we don’t get them too much so we must be deemed poor quality games.

“It’s kind of gloves off, I’m usually quite measured and take my time I don’t like to criticise because we’ve lost obviously, but again, I’d have said the same thing in victory.

“Games are very much decided by officials quite often and the obvious response to that will be, ‘they don’t miss a tackle’, ‘they don’t do a forward pass’, and no they don’t, but they don’t get batted 25 times a game either so a lot of it is just visual.

“Then when you’ve got a bright pink boot four foot in front of you on a touchline, then you would hope that somebody competent would make the right decision. As a result of that the sequence continues and we get a man in the bin and then there’s a try scored from a knock on.

“Usually in the last two games we’ve been on the wrong side of things and I never tread that path with the players. I always worry about what we can do and what we can do better but I’m finding it very, very hard to go in there and hit the players with a stick because I think they did everything we asked of them.

“I thought we were physically good, I thought the game was decided by the officiating. I can’t be any clearer than that. I’m happy to put it out there and I think it’s factual. Well I know it’s factual and so I don’t think I can be criticised for saying it as it is.”