North Queensland have been dudded for the second week in a row by misjudged refereeing decisions after NRL head of football Graham Annesley admitted match officials missed a crucial knock-on call in their Friday night loss to the Tigers.
The Cowboys went down 26-27 in a golden point thriller, however the Tigers' second try was marred by controversy after centre Esan Marsters appeared to make an error in the contest for a kick.
After the ball flicked past Marsters' hand, Tigers second-rower Ryan Matterson pounced on the loose Steeden to give the away side a 12-0 lead.
Referee Ben Cummins was confident enough to not refer to the video referee as replays showed clear contact with Marsters.
‘’There is only one explanation and that is that the referee felt from what he saw that that Wests Tigers player didn’t touch the ball,’’ Annesley said.
‘’In a contest for the ball where there are arms in the air, probably 99 times out of 100 they will go to the video referee, but he clearly felt that there was no touch and that’s why he made the decision.
‘’Was it a wise decision to make given there was a contest for the ball? No, probably not. But there is no other explanation.
‘’He formed a view that he didn’t need to and that view has been proven to be incorrect.’’
There were also blow-ups over a late penalty try to Michael Chee Kam that gave the Tigers a lead in the 74th minute after Jordan Kahu contacted Chee Kam high before raking the ball out.
The video referee deemed Kahu's foul play denied Chee Kam a chance at scoring and awarded a penalty try without the advice of the on-field referee.
Annesley had no issue with The Bunker's intervention and said the call was a matter of opinion.
‘’We have no issue with the video referee using his judgement that way. We don’t believe we can say that is a wrong decision,’’ he said.
‘’Of course all these matters when opinion is involved there will be divided opinion. There will be people who think it’s a penalty try, there will be others who think it should not have been but it’s not something we could categorically say that the video referees made an error.’’
