Canterbury coach Des Hasler wasn't in any mood for celebrating after notching up his club's 10th successive win for just the third time in their 77-year history on Saturday night, instead turning the blowtorch again upon the standard of NRL refereeing.
In an unprompted outburst and risking a $10,000 fine, Hasler all but accused match referees Jason Robinson and Brett Suttor and video referee Bernard Suttor of colluding to allow Newcastle back into a game Canterbury led 24-0 after 18 minutes, before eventually winning 26-10.
When Hasler was asked what impressed him about the Bulldogs' win he replied: "I can tell you what I wasn't impressed with that is probably a better way to start.
"I wasn't impressed with the two blokes in the pink shirts, ok, and I can see all of you nodding your head.
"There's not much we don't monitor, we don't miss out on and we had the rabbits ears working on the referees and one thing I could not understand towards the back end of the first half, the referees are talking amongst themselves saying 'this game is going to change, this game is going to change, this game is going to change' and we get a run of four penalties against us."
Hasler labelled the referees as "out of touch".
"At the moment we are sitting in the top four but we are the most penalised side in the competition and I don't think we are playing that ill-disciplined football to have that against us," he said.
"I have alerted (referees coach) Bill (Harrigan) to it but obviously I will have to take a trip out there (to NRL headquarters).
"I thought both referees tonight were very poor and we need to help them. We need to do something about the standard of refereeing."
Hasler, whose outbursts against referees have become common over the past few seasons, also said he was disgusted with the way Bulldogs captain Michael Ennis was treated by the referees.
"That's the other thing, little or no respect was afforded to our captain out there," Hasler said.
"They didn't listen to him, they didn't listen to his counsel or anything like that and Mick will not be commenting on it so do not ask him any questions about the referees. The club has made a statement we will leave it at that."
