North Queensland Cowboys demand public apology from NRL bosses following latest bungle

THE Cowboys have ­demanded NRL bosses personally front and apologise to their football department and fans after Friday’s shocking refereeing howler

NORTH Queensland have ­demanded NRL bosses personally front and apologise to their dudded football department and fans after the latest refereeing howler that’s put US technology firmly back on rugby league’s agenda.

NRL head of football Todd Greenberg and referees’ boss Tony Archer are expected to travel to Townsville this week while NRL chief executive Dave Smith has promised to head north in the coming weeks to personally smooth the waters after the third monumental blunder against the Cowboys in as many seasons.

NRL bosses admitted Kieran Foran’s try in the 26-21 ­defeat should have been denied for obstruction, adding more insult to a team that ended their 2012 and 2013 finals campaigns with the “Hand of Foran” and “seventh-tackle try” dramas.

“(Smith) was quite devastated by all the stuff-ups that have been happening. He is the boss and he wants it fixed the same as the rest of us,” Cowboys chief executive Peter Jourdain said.

News_Rich_Media: Last night a controversial referee decision cost North Queensland severely as Manly fought back to beat the Cowboys by five points – and it’s not the first time a refereeing blunder has cost the men from the North.

“The NRL is embarrassed about it. They do genuinely seem to want to do something about it, so I want to get them up and see if we can work through it with them.

“Certainly I’d like to get some senior people up this week from the NRL.

“Let’s get it out of the way as quickly as we can. We owe it to our fans and members in north Queensland who are really strong rugby league supporters. They are starting to get disillusioned.

“The game owes it to them as well as us as a club that we get them to come up to north Queensland and deal with it face to face.”

GREEN VOWS TO WALK NUDE THROUGH PITT STREET

COWBOYS BLUNDER A CONCERN FOR NRL

The news comes as Greenberg confirmed to the Sunday Mail that he had begun ­reinvestigating US technology over the off-season that could see NFL or NHL-style centralised video referee bunkers introduced to eliminate howlers forever.

Five years after it was shot down as the “stupidest thing I have ever heard” by the likes of Phil Gould, the NRL is considering the revolutionary approach that would give one central body the chance to immediately overrule howlers before they ruin results in games.

News_Image_File: The moment Jamie Buhrer takes out Ray Thompson.

The “bunker” could be ­located at NRL headquarters or somewhere with full access to a live television feed so that the most experienced officials can intervene if the on-site video officials are about to stuff up, as they did on Friday night.

“We will keep exploring it but we’re not in a position to make any comments on it at the moment,” Greenberg said.

“It is certainly something we have been looking at for a number of months now.

“It has a big expense ­attached to it and there are some issues with it but we will continue to look at it.”

The concept was dismissed by league bosses back in 2009 as too expensive and difficult, but with the game now flush with broadcast money and technology further advanced, there is simply no reason to turn away from a project that could ensure the right results in football games.

Jourdain would certainly support anything that could avoid the embarrassing mistakes that had robbed his football team in recent years.

News_Rich_Media: North Queensland Cowboys coach Paul Green laments a number of controversial refereeing decisions in his side's defeat to Manly on Friday night.

“Given the technology is there now, I think that makes a lot of sense,” Jourdain said.

“Hopefully you get a lot more consistent rulings. Clearly the guys in the video box for us yesterday don’t know the rules. How does that happen?”

What is clear is that the current system is not working.

NRL coaches have no faith the right decision will be consistently made, players believe obstruction ­decisions are nothing but a lottery and fans are becoming more ­disenchanted with the game every week.