The costly decision to sin-bin Tolu Koula during Sunday's clash between the Knights and Sea Eagles has been questioned by Anthony Seibold - but he stopped short of saying it cost his side a crucial two points.
The young centre was given his marching orders by Peter Gough in the 65th minute of Manly's loss at McDonald Jones Stadium, allowing the hosts to the take the lead moments later and finish 28-18 victors.
Koula was placed on report for the incident, which saw him collect Newcastle captain Kalyn Ponga marginally high, and could face further sanctions from the match review committee.
But speaking to the media after full-time, Seibold admitted the decision was the wrong one.
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"I thought it was a harsh call," he said.
"That’s not why we lost the game, but I thought it was a tough call when I looked at it on replay.
"I didn’t think it was a sin-bin. If it was a penalty, I could live with that because potentially there might have been some contact there. I thought sin-bin was really tough and we conceded two tries during that period.
“It’s a tough job for the referees and I’m not going to get caught up in any of the decision-making. Ultimately, we weren’t good enough to win the game regardless of some of the decisions.
"There’s a thousand decisions in a game… some we get right, some we get wrong and the referees are human as well.
"I’m not being critical, but I just didn’t think it was a sin-bin."
Anthony Seibold praises 'brave' Manly outfit
Despite coming up short, Seibold was full of praise for his side's effort against the Knights.
With all three Trbojevic brothers, Daly Cherry-Evans, Josh Aloiai and Kelma Tuilagi all absent due to injury or representative commitments, Manly were still able to hang in the game until the dying stages when Dom Young ran the length of the field to seal the result.
“I thought we were really brave today," Seibold said.
"We had a whole heap of players missing – what we spoke about before the game was if we could be in the contest with 15 or 20 minutes to go, we would give ourselves a real chance and we were.
"We just weren’t good enough to execute at the end of the game and some of that was our own doing. I was super proud of the guys today… I think we had about six try-saving tackles."
