11/05/2008 6:42:02 PM
Adam Lucius at ANZ Stadium
St George Illawarra centre Matt Cooper accused referee Sean Hampstead of being conned into not awarding a try at a crucial stage of the Dragons' 18-19 loss to Parramatta at ANZ Stadium on Sunday.
Trailing 0-6 after 32 minutes, Saints looked to have hit back with a try to Jason Nightingale after Cooper and Kirk Reynoldson combined to crunch Eric Grothe in a tackle as he was running the ball out from his line.
Hampstead appeared to be about to award the try before Grothe and other players began protesting that Cooper had stripped the ball.
The decision was sent to video referee Steve Clark, who found in favour of Parramatta and disallowed the try.
The Eels scored a minute later against a demoralised Dragons outfit to take a 12-0 lead.
"He was just about to award it until all the players blew up about it," Cooper said of the stripping decision.
"At the time I thought try straight away because I wasn't trying to strip it, I was just trying to tackle him."
"In my eyes it was fair tackle. Even if I did force it out I wasn't trying to intentionally strip it."
"I thought it was a fair tackle. There should be some onus on the tackled player to hold the ball."
"I was pretty disappointed with that because we scored and it got disallowed and then the first set (after the strip penalty) they scored."
St George Illawarra coach Nathan Brown was philosophical about the critical ruling.
"When you are flying high and you're winning you get them, when you're not you don't get them," he said.
"But I thought our response to the no-try was poor. They scored from the next set."
"I was more concerned about our effort after it. If they don't score, we win the game."
Not surprisingly, Parramatta coach Michael Hagan thought the officials got it right.
He declared with a smile that the Eels were now officially on a roll after two consecutive wins.
"But I still think we're a work in progress. We need to improve next week and in coming weeks," he warned.
"But we're healthy and we've got some players in pretty good form and a bit to look forward to for the rest of the year."