A sub standard crowd for an elimination final has watched the Manly Sea Eagles defeat the North Queensland Cowboys 22-12.
This is a game that will be remembered for a very long time and for all the wrong reasons.
First of all, as predicted Manly fans didn’t turn up in big numbers at all. 18kms was too far to travel it seems and only 16,678 turned up to watch the defending Premiers in an elimination final. That is disgraceful.
It got worse though…
The refereeing in this game was atrocious. I’ll cop the 50/50 decisons during the run of play that might be called thw rong way. Its a fast game and in the middle of the pitch, referee’s need to make a decisions immediately while we have the luxury to sit back and watch the replays.
However, when a decision is refered to the video referee and they miss a blatant knock on….and that decision all but decides the outcome of a game that will end the year for one side, that is a disgrace!
Who ever the video referee was in this game should be fired. Not dropped for a week or even for the rest of the year. They need to be fired, forever. They made a terrible decisions in allowing a plainly obvious knock on by Kieran Foran which directly led to a Manly try.
They needs sacked.
The Cowboys started this game off looking very nervous and the Sea Eagles looked like they would blow them off the park. However the Cowboys managed to keep the game close and when they leveled up at 12 all it was game on.
From that moment on every major turning point in the game revolved around refereeing decisions, most of which were wrong. Manly ended up getting the rub of the green and walked away with the win.
It is terrible that the Cowboys season came to an end this way. They were beaten by the better team on the night but still, they worked their arse off all year and to end up watching their most important game of the season slip away of terrible calls, it shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
The referee’s this season have been terrible. This match showed how incompetent they can be.
After the match Brad Fittler interviewed Jonathan Thurston and Thurston did well not to say anything that would draw a $10,000 fine. He was furious during the game and its hard to blame him.
As for Manly, they did enough and now go on to face the Storm in Melbourne next week. That should be a great game.
To listen to the Cowboys post match press conference Click Here.
Here are some of my tweets from this game:
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Have your say by commenting on this article!
It’s shameful. As a Manly fan I do NOT want us to win that way
As a Panthers fan I’d take a forfeit if it meant we advanced! 😀
I am thrilled that we won lmao but that was such an obvious knock on…it’s spoilt the win. People talk about that NO TRY and not Manly…even I’m doing it LOL
That’s true. Few people are even talking about their next game yet. It’s all still just outrage! Lol