Wests Tigers head coach Benji Marshall has lashed out at NRL referee Gerard Sutton and bunker official Ashley Klein over a pair of sin bins during the club's almost incredible comeback over the North Queensland Cowboys.
Trailing 32 points to 6 with just over 20 minutes to go in the contest, the Tigers would score three tries in a five-minute period, and another five minutes from fulltime, but ultimately couldn't fall over the finish line against the Cowboys in Townsville, falling short by four points.
The game wasn't without its controversy, with Jeremiah Nanai being awarded a dubious try, and both Tigers captain Jarome Luai and centre Adam Doueihi spending time in the sin bin during the first half.
Luai's sin bin came on the back of multiple back-to-back infringements on the Tigers' own goalline, while Doueihi's came after he was ruled to have taken out John Bateman in a professional foul situation as a kick was chased down.
Marshall labelled the sin bins as 'pretty harsh' while praising the effort of his team to get back into the game.
โI was really proud of the effort for the boys to fight back into the contest,โ Marshall said during his post-match press conference.
โWe gave ourselves a chance there. A few opportunities we missed at the back end.
โI'm proud of the way we fought. We just have to address some things that got us into that position.
โThere are things in our control that we can be better at, but there were also things that were out of our control like the two sin bins I thought were pretty harsh."
Marshall also took exception with the try awarded to Nanai, who was backing up just 72 hours after being one of Queensland's best in the opening game of the 2025 State of Origin series in Brisbane.
โThe Nanai try going up as a no try and it came back down and he overruled the referee, which I thought he took our player out," Marshall added.
โSo there was a couple of things we can't control, but there is definitely things we can improve on to not be in that position, but again proud of the fight.โ
The coach said he believes the game may have been different without the two sin bin periods, with the Cowboys scoring twice while Luai was in the sin bin, and three times while Doueihi was off the field.
โThe game is hard enough playing 13 on 13, so playing 13 on 12 is hard,โ Marshall said.
โBeing on the end of a lot of penalties and six agains hurts too, so we were constantly defending.
โI think we had 40 per cent possession in the first half and completed real low, so that didn't help.
โWe have just got to stick together. There were things in the second half we can take away around playing positive footy and be upbeat about those things.
โBut also identify what we need to work on and be better at those things.โ
