‘Blew us off the park’: Referee allegation mars Gold Coast opening round

A Rugby League Gold Coast A Grade coach has blasted the match official of his side’s season opening defeat for “blowing us out of the game.” We’ve sourced the penalty count - does he have a point?

FILE PICTURE: Hudson Young of the Raiders is sent to the sin bin by referee Todd Smith (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

Helensvale Hornets coach Andrew Grills has blasted the match official of his side’s A Grade season opening defeat for “blowing us out of the game” in a 42-10 drubbing at Burleigh on Sunday.

Helensvale lost the first half penalty count 9-3 and gave away three set restarts to zero as Burleigh marched to a commanding lead, before their fortunes were reversed in the second half.

The penalty count finalised at 11-apiece with Burleigh winning the set restart count 5-2 over the course of the match.

Helensvale will not lodge a formal protest but the club’s new coach made clear his disappointment.

“He blew us out of the game, there’s no other way of saying it,” Grills declared.

“Campbell (Pirihi, Helensvale captain) got sin-binned when he shouldn’t have, then they had other penalties which weren’t given. They put one bloke on report but he should have been sin-binned.

“But my blokes didn’t give up. We’ve only had a couple of training runs whereas Burleigh had seven players play Queensland Cup last weekend.

“I hate losing, I wanted the two points, but for me it was more about the hitout against a pretty big club. We outscored them in the second half … and I guarantee you they’ll know they played at Helensvale next time they play us.”

Burleigh coach Matt Foster declined to comment on the allegations of unfair refereeing.

“I always felt we were in control of the game. We scored nine tries and only converted three, so the scoreline could have looked a bit bigger if we’d been better with the boot,” he said.

“We controlled the ruck speed well and we played good footy in patches. It was a solid first round win with plenty to work on. I wouldn’t say we were razor sharp but we cut through at times.”

Burleigh was on track to hold Helensvale to nil but bobbled a bomb on the goalline to concede and then gave away a penalty try that home spectators felt was harsh.

Currumbin marched to the top of the ladder with a 48-0 victory over Southport in Jarrod Gill’s 200th game.

The Tigers’ rebuild will go through plenty of pain but restricting Currumbin to under 50 earned the respect of Eagles coach Matt Geyer.

“I don’t want to show any disrespect to Southport,” he said.

“When you don’t have Clive Palmer’s money and all those NRL players you’re not going to field as strong a team but I said to Southport’s coach after the game how proud he should be of the boys who pulled those boots on.

“They’re trying to instil pride back into their jersey because as outlined in the Bulletin last week the club had been identified as the mercenary club who tried to buy premierships.

“They took their first steps on that path to redemption and I won’t say a bad word about any of the boys who took the field that day.”

Former Southport president Scott Mulligan came out of retirement to play 40 minutes at hooker in a remarkable display of commitment to the Tigers.

Former Titans Tyrone Peachey and Mitch Rein inspired premiers Tugun to beat Runaway Bay 34-12.

Originally published as ‘Blew us off the park’: Referee allegation mars Gold Coast opening round