Manly coach Des Hasler has called for consistency in officiating high shots after his side's 18-10 loss to Newcastle on Sunday evening.
The Sea Eagles took a 10-0 lead in the opening 25 minutes before being held scoreless for the remainder of the clash to end their three-match winning streak.
Their task was made all the more difficult when Sean Keppie and Marty Taupau were sin binned for high shots either side of the break.
Keppie's was an obvious sin bin and he could perhaps consider himself lucky not to be sent off after he collected Phoenix Crossland high after a kick.
Hasler took issue with Taupau's sin binning after the bunker drew referee Ben Cummins' attention to the shot on Daniel Saifiti several tackles after the fact.
The veteran coach felt an earlier tackle on Taupau went unpunished by the officials.
"A nine-nil penalty count. I think we got our first penalty in the last 11 seconds," Hasler said post-match.
"Benny Cummins is a much better referee than that. So first of all there's an issue there.
"That we couldn't buy some retribution as far as field position was concerned.
"We were doing okay, we cruising pretty well at 10-0 and I've already mentioned we were a little bit ill-discliplined.
"I don't quite understand the rule around the sin bin. Our player attacks the head, on report, 10 minutes, but when Marty carried the ball, he got hit high.
"So if you come into forceful contact with the head, that's a sin bin, and they didn't get sent to the sin bin.
"That's not a whinge or a reflection on Newcastle, it's just a reflection on the inconcistency in regard to that rule.
"Well done to Newcastle, they got the two points, but they were ably assisted, lets be honest, in relation to that."
Hasler suggested the officials were still figuring out how to punish high shots following the recent crackdown.
"If we're going to go down this track we need to be consistent with it," he added.
"I know [NRL head of football] Graham Annesley will be watching, I know he'll have another sleepless night tonight and he'll wake up with a headache in the morning.
"The games are tight, the games are hard to win and if that's the way we're going to go down we need to have consistency with that."
Hasler was asked if he'll seek clarification from the NRL during the week: "I think Graham will probably call me."
Having watched his under-strength side move up to 11th place with their fifth win of the season, Knights coach Adam O'Brien was unwilling to be drawn into a comment on the officiating.
"I've been on the other side of it. I thought we played a really disciplined game of footy," O'Brien told reporters.
"I didn't see it that way. I don't want to sit here and talk about refs, I want to sit here and talk about that young footy team that had a crack tonight."
