Webster said the officiating was frustrating, starting with the Leiataua knock-on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought they were trying to find ways to take it off us,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018I can\u2019t find any evidence\u2019 and he says, \u2018oh hang on, I\u2019ll have one more look\u201d, and then there\u2019s a look, \u201coh yeah there it is\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201c[He] looked at it 20 times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster questioned the call on Martin\u2019s alleged strip.<\/p>\n
\u201cTe Maire\u2019s only trying to tackle him; he\u2019s not trying to strip the ball. And because he went in a backwards motion, I\u2019ve never heard that one, but I\u2019m sure it\u2019s part of the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin was adamant he was not trying to strip the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t plan on that,\u201d he said post-match. <\/p>\n
\u201cI got bumped off. I don\u2019t know how you get bumped off and try and strip it at the same time. But yeah, we still had opportunities to win the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to go tackle him, got bumped off, and the ball popped out. So to be honest, there was no intention on stripping it. But I actually got up and said a few words to him because I thought he dropped it. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously at that time, you\u2019re kind of at that level where you know not to strip there; it\u2019s not really what you need and gives them an easy leg out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webster also took exception to the non-escort call on Frizell. If the penalty was awarded, it would have allowed the Warriors a penalty kick to tie the game.<\/p>\n
Tyson Frizell looked to have blocked Erin Clark from challenging for the high ball. Photo \/ Sky Sport<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo points would have drawn the game. He\u2019s going across pretending to try and catch the ball, which they told us you can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019ll be clear, that would have drawn the game and gone to golden point, or we could have scored off the other one, who knows? But at the end of the day you make your own luck in this game, and we had enough opportunities to win that game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knights coach Justin Holbrook was clearly irritated at being asked about the calls in the press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought they were all right. I\u2019m not here to comment on the result. Anyway, we were fantastic today. The Warriors have had a great year; they were enormous. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not much in the game, but I want to thank our players. We played with 100-odd fans here out of 50,000, and we knew how many fans were watching back home, so I\u2019m really happy with the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the escort, Holbrook said: \u201cI didn\u2019t notice that, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n
When pressed on Martin\u2019s strip, the coach said: \u201cI thought he stripped it with his hand and ripped it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nathan Limm<\/a> has been a journalist with Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald since 2020. He covered the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, hosts The Big League Podcast<\/a> and commentates rugby and netball for Gold Sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frizell kept his eyes on the ball and lifted his hands as if attempting a catch, but crossed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[467602,9490,2533,64,63,3181,92458,41262,19385,10366,66329,16308,4837,7992,6010,761,762,10668,158,27865,11920,24097,79018,85,1928,13807,319,467601,3198,229594,14329],"class_list":["post-898985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-467602","tag-after","tag-andrew","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coach","tag-controversial","tag-cost","tag-decisions","tag-defeat","tag-eden","tag-finals","tag-frustration","tag-knights","tag-loss","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-newcastle","tag-nrl","tag-officials","tag-park","tag-referee","tag-slams","tag-sports","tag-their","tag-three","tag-to","tag-vented","tag-warriors","tag-webster","tag-which"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}