Warrington Wolves boss Sam Burgess has questioned whether rugby league wants to get better after being on the end of another controversial refereeing call. The Wire fell to their first defeat in four on Sunday afternoon as they lost 20-14 at Castleford Tigers.
Burgess’ side could have no complaints about the result, but they could feel aggrieved about not being awarded a penalty try in the 67th minute of the contest as Josh Thewlis was denied a certain try by a high tackle.
Thewlis left the field for a HIA while Alex Mellor was sent to the sin bin for the challenge, but Warrington weren’t awarded the points. Warrington did get over through Stefan Ratchford a couple of minutes later, ensuring the penalty try snub wasn’t as costly as it could have been.
But Burgess could be heard questioning the decision after the game, insisting that for the second week running he will be seeking clarity from head of match officials Phil Benthem.
Warrington Wolves’ Sam Burgess slates controversial video referee call
“It’s becoming very common, the poor decisions,” Burgess said about the video referee call Liam Rush. “I’m so confused.
“Last week a try went up as no try against us with six minutes to go. It was a clear impede on the catcher. James Vella spent five minutes reviewing it and still overturned it.
“It put Catalans ahead with three minutes to go but we still managed to win the game. I questioned that with Phil Benthem through the week who told me they got the try wrong, it should have been a try. That was confusing.
“Tonight I don’t know, I’m really struggling to understand that call. I’ll ask for clarity again on Monday morning through Phil Benthem. I’ll probably get an email saying ‘yeah, we got it wrong, it should have been a penalty try. Sorry, Sam’. It’s past the point of frustration.
“All being said I have to get it on the record, we just weren’t good enough as well. I’m not making any excuses. More from a neutrals point of view it’s becoming a little bit too much.
“We’re in round 19 in the league and we’ve played five Challenge Cup games so we’re 24 rounds into the season and we’ve not had one bit of dialogue, there’s no input, no opportunity for input.
“I don’t know if the game wants to get better. That’s another conversation for another time, it’s just where it’s at at the moment, unfortunately.”
On the game itself, which left Warrington three points adrift of the play-off spots with eight games remaining, Burgess added: “It was tough to watch some of it. Parts of it were decent but we just conceded points a bit too easy and I thought the first two tries were too easy really.
“We’ve been working hard in that area, we really have, but it’s just not transferring for us yet. We just have to stay on that.”
