‘My contract’s not big enough to pay the fine’: Kevin Walters fumes

Brisbane Broncos coach Kevin Walters has gone as close to stepping over the line as possible after his side’s controversial loss to the Storm.

Kevin Walters wasn't happy. Photo: Fox Sports

Broncos coach Kevin Walters has been left fuming after his side’s 24-16 loss to the Melbourne Storm in Melbourne.

In a match that had it all, including some bad blood that threatened to boil over all match, with four sin bins in the match.

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Herbie Farnworth was sin binned for a professional foul in the 37th minute, Pat Carrigan was binned for a controversial hip drop, and the Storm’s Aaron Pene and Broncos’ Tom Flegler both were sent for some late push and shove.

Post-match Walters was furious, seeming to go as close to the line of blasting the officials as he could.

“I’m pretty frustrated,” Walters said. “We came here to play football, that’s what we’ve been doing all year. I just don’t feel that we got a game of football.

“I’ll take the loss, we’ve lost before. But this is two good teams going at it and it just didn’t become a game of football.”

Pressed on the source of his frustration, Walters said: “I guess that we were behind on the scoreboard — that frustrated me more than anything.

“But Thursday night, prime-time and we didn’t see a good game of football.”

Kevin Walters was not happy. Photo: Fox Sports

Questioned if some of the decisions by referee Todd Smith and the bunker contributed, Walters held his tongue.

“I’m not sure how it happened,” he said. “We had three guys sin binned. It’s hard to win when that happens.

“Were they fair sin bins? I’m not going to comment on that because my contract’s not big enough to pay the fine.”

After the Broncos’ first try was ruled a penalty try after Harry Grant was deemed to have pushed Herbie Farnworth over as the pair chased a grubber, in the 37th minute, it was the Broncos centre’s turn to land in hot water.

After a grubber was put through the line by Jahrome Hughes, Farnworth was deemed to have impeded Reimis Smith on the chase.

As Smith likely wouldn’t have scored, it was ruled a professional foul and he was marched for 10 minutes.

But in the moment, Michael Ennis said in Fox League commentary that “a penalty is sufficient there”.

The Herbie Farnworth sin bin. Photo: Fox Sports

In the second half, Pat Carrigan was sin binned for a hip drop tackle, even though it didn’t appear as though he landed on the back of Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s legs.

“There’s no doubt he loses his leg (but) I think Carrigan is just slipping down though,” Mick Ennis said.

“I know there has got to be intent but when the top of your ribs fall down there … it wasn’t the classic hip drop,” Gorden Tallis said.

“We’re going to keep on seeing it and I suppose if there’s any weight, any pressure on your lower leg, it’s called the hip-drop.”

Bryan Fletcher added: “The danger for Patty is he’s done it previously. I don’t think he meant it but I don’t think a lot of them do. Going off what’s happened, I think he might be in strife for Origin one.”

At full-time, Carrigan told Nine: “Nelson is a big boy. He beat me on the outside shoulder and I was just trying to tackle him.

“I don’t even know if I landed on him. I don’t think it was a hip drop.

“I hope the big fella was OK. We’ll see what happens.”

Is this a hip drop? Photo: Fox Sports

Asked about the Carrigan hip drop sin bin, Walters simply said: “He slipped down his legs …

“Anyway, good luck to the Storm, they deserved to win. But the good thing from our perspective is we’ve come here to a tough environment and last time we came here, we got beat by 50 so I reckon we've made some improvements.”

Walters was again asked about the hip drop and whether the NRL need to adjust how it adjudicates the rule: “Yeah, definitely. You wouldn’t like to see that in a Grand Final.”

Even Storm coach Craig Bellamy believed it was a tough call.

“I think we’re very inconsistent with it,” Bellamy said. “I think Patrick tonight was very unlucky to go to the sin bin. I’m thinking along the lines of Kevvie’s thinking there. I thought it was a really tough decision to send him to the sin bin but that was sort of the way the game went tonight.”