Manly Sea Ealges head coach Anthony Seibold has slammed the officiating during Saturday evening's loss to the Sydney Roosters.
Manly lost both Jason Saab and Reuben Garrick early on. While Garrick's exit from the game wasn't down to foul play, Saab's was, with Roosters' centre Michael Jennings - who was a last-minute inclusion for the contest - taking him in a dangerous tackle.
Jennings was put on report, but not sin binned, while Saab was unable to return from his HIA as Manly 18th man Clayton Faulalo was activated into the contest.
Manly staged a dramatic comeback after falling behind early to almost pick up an unlikely win, but Seibold said Jennings being placed on report did no favours for his team, and that the centre should have been sin binned.
โDefinitely,โ Seibold said during his post-match press conference when asked point blank whether more action should have been taken against Saab.
โJason Saab is crook, he's in the change room and he's crook, he couldn't pass the HIA protocols so we lose him for the game and essentially the Roosters bloke gets put on report but that doesn't help us.
โWe only had two changes left for that entire second half because we had to replace Saab.
"We don't get any benefit from just getting the penalty. It's foul play, we lose a player, I thought that would be a sin bin but it wasn't tonight for whatever reason.โ
Trent Robinson disagreed with Seibold's view, saying the contest was 'minimal' and suggesting Jennings wouldn't have anything to worry about.
โI don't think so at all, to be honest. I think that was minimal,โ he said.
โIt's not good what happened to Jason, but it looked pretty minimal and accidental. It hit him in the right spot and then slid... but anyway that'll be up to someone else.โ
The loss for the Sea Eagles likely leaves the club still needing to win at least two of their final five games to qualify for the finals.
