Warriors coach Andrew Webster has hinted at his frustration after his side lost 18-6 to the Penrith Panthers, their third defeat in a row, following more contentious decisions by the match officials.
Like in their previous defeats to the Storm and Roosters, the Warriors again failed to get the rub of the green from the referee or his assistants during the match at Suncorp Stadium.
No Panthers player was deemed culpable for Dallin Watene-Zelezniak’s head injury which forced him off the field for an HIA late in the game, while Warrior Demitric Sifakula was sinbinned for getting involved in a scuffle and making a striking action towards Nathan Cleary’s face.
There was no punishment, either, for Moses Leota smashing his forearm in the face of Tohu Harris, making his comeback from injury.
Meanwhile, Jackson Ford was sinbinned for an alleged hip drop.
Webster has never criticised match officials this season but came close in the aftermath of another disappointment for a side with genuine top-eight hopes in 2023. Their latest loss drops them to 11th, two points off the eighth-placed Raiders.
“I’m going to take a hat around and get you guys to pay for my fine,” Webster said in reference to the NRL’s punishment for the criticism of officials.
“If you all want to chip in, I’ll give you whatever you want."
Of the Watene-Zelezniak situation, he said: “Dallin has got a swollen face and a sore nose. No one has done that on purpose, yet he goes to the HIA and nothing happens. Things like that, I’m not understanding at the moment.”
Webster said Ford’s hip drop tackle wasn’t something the Warriors coached but he was clearly unhappy with the sin binning of Sifakula for his apparent contact to the face of Cleary.
“The Demitric one, I feel like his hand is open, like he’s pushing him in the face,” he said.
“You see Nathan’s face move, but it’s like going to push him and then the next thing he’s in the bin.
“Then hip drops, whatever it is, they’re tough at the moment, I need to look at that one again.”
Webster added of his team’s performance: “When we were good, we were really good, extremely good. When we weren’t playing well, we weren’t great.
“Our ruck control was keeping us in the game, the way we ended our sets, the way we executed, we had four line breaks to their three at half-time. Some of them were against the grain but the try we scored, that showed how good we can look.
“But we’ve got to give ourselves more opportunity to be down there and you can’t do that if you don’t win your tackles and put some pressure on through your defence.
“They are certainly trying hard again, I thought the want not to let them cross the line with the amount of ball they had inside our half, that was tough, but we let them get down our half too often through discipline, concentration or poor tackling.”
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