Paul Rowley speaks out on potential punishment from the RFL

The likes of Leeds Rhinos, Warrington Wolves, Salford Red Devils, Hull FC, Hull KR and Huddersfield Giants are wrapped up in a battle for the last two play-off spots.

Two of those teams collide on Friday as Huddersfield host Salford Red Devils with the away side looking to end a seven game losing run that has put their play-off hopes in doubt.

They haven’t had much luck recently and after their latest defeat to Super League and World Champions St Helens, Paul Rowley wasn’t best pleased with the officials.

In fact he branded referee Jack Smith “a disgrace.”

The comments are to be looked at by the compliance board of the RFL and he could face punishment for them but Rowley is unphased.

“I wasn’t angry, I was as calm as a cucumber,” he said on the club’s website.

When asked: “Are you expecting to hear anything from the RFL about that? You’ve said you’ve not really heard anything yet.”

He said: “Yeah, I would imagine so. So I’ll just wait.”

He would also reveal Ian Blease has heard from the RFL:

“I think Ian Blease might have done, but I’ll just crack on.

“No, I’ve not. I’ve been told nothing.”

Rowley is in trouble for these comments:

“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.