Warriors coach Andrew Webster has refused to blame a blatant Reece Walsh forward pass for his side’s 42-12 NRL preliminary-final exit at the hands of Brisbane at Suncorp Stadium.
With the Warriors clinging on to hope of a comeback to keep their fairytale run alive at 24-12 down on Saturday, Walsh spotted an opening in the visitors’ defence and attacked down the right edge.
After breaking through, the Broncos fullback passed to winger Selwyn Cobbo, but the ball appeared to travel metres forward before play was allowed to continue.
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Cobbo then also produced a questionable ball back inside for Jordan Riki, who put the final nail in the Warriors’ season with a try to make it 30-12.
Despite that, Webster refused to be overly critical of the decision after the match and said the miss by referee Gerard Sutton and sideline officials could not be blamed for the loss.
“It is pretty clear to say the forward pass was so wrong it wasn’t funny,” Webster said.
“But they made a line break, we’d allowed the line break, and then the forward pass comes off the back of that.
“We weren’t defending well in that period, the forward pass was wrong. But we’re not crying over that. It certainly didn’t cost us the game.
“We’ve got to give ourselves an opportunity to win and we have to take the referees out of it.
“The boys are trying hard and get frustrated by decisions. But at the end of the day we have to take some ownership of what we have to do better.”
The pass is likely to again raise questions over the bunker’s inability to call on forward passes, with the NRL concerned over camera angles causing issues in decisions.
The league has also toyed with the idea of chips in balls to detect forward passes, and while technology was tested in the NRLW last year, further use is yet to be approved.
Pushed further, Webster was adamant that he did not want to be dragged into the issue.
“So much has happened in our season, I don’t want to talk about that right now,” Webster said.
“We’re just talking about New Zealand, the Warriors, how proud we are and how we can better.
“The technology that can get sorted out at end of the year. But I am not interested in that right now.”
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