{"id":607011,"date":"2026-09-21T10:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607011\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T10:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:06:11","slug":"nrl-admits-late-warriors-call-was-wrong-axes-top-referee-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607011\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL admits late Warriors call was wrong, axes top referee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Referee Ashley Klein has been reportedly dumped from the NRL preliminary finals after he failed to award a crucial escort penalty in the final minute of the Warriors loss to the Knights at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

The Sydney Morning Herald reported the NRL conceded a penalty should have been awarded to the Warriors, which would have provided the chance to send their game into extra point.<\/p>\n

The Warriors contacted the NRL on Monday morning to discuss a number of contentious calls in their 12-10 loss to Newcastle, particularly why Tysom Frizell was not punished for blocking the path of a leaping Leka Halasima.<\/p>\n

Klein will not be selected to officiate either of the two preliminary finals this weekend but remains in contention to referee the grand final.<\/p>\n

\"Ashley<\/p>\n

Ashley Klein awards a penalty despite the protests of Warriors captain James Fisher-Harris and Erin Clark (Source: Photosport)<\/p>\n

It comes after fans fired projectiles at Klein<\/a> in the aftermath of the Warriors\u2019 12-10 loss to the Knights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Footage from after the game showed bottles, cups and rubbish being thrown at Klein by supporters as he was escorted from the field with security. <\/p>\n

The NRL said it had launched an investigation into potential breaches of spectators\u2019 code of conduct following the match. <\/p>\n

Warriors great Shaun Johnson hit out at the “embarrassing” fan response, saying there was \u201cjust no need for it\u201d. <\/p>\n

“Ashley Klein has probably refereed the best game of rugby league I have seen in a long time tonight,\u201d Johnson said of Sunday’s game. <\/p>\n

“He didn’t make the game about him. He let the players come and play and they dictated the outcome.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Referee Ashley Klein has been reportedly dumped from the NRL preliminary finals after he failed to award a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,111,139,577,69,213,3006],"class_list":["post-607011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-auckland","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nrl","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}