NRL head of football Graham Annesley has admitted Canterbury were dudded by a Bunker blunder early in their loss to Cronulla on Friday when Viliame Kikau was denied a fair try.

Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo said after the game that he would confront the NRL’s referees department after he took aim at a number of questionable calls in his side’s 25-6 loss to Cronulla including Briton Nikora only receiving a sin bin for his high shot on Kikau.

Ciraldo was particularly frustrated by the fact Kikau had a try chalked off in the first half after Sharks five-eighth Braydon Trindall was impeded by referee Ziggy Przeklasa-Adamski while trying to bring the Bulldogs back-rower down.

“I don’t believe this try should have been overturned,” Annesley admitted at his weekly media conference on Monday. “The referee has to be somewhere on the field. He can’t just disappear and the run from Trindall goes around the backside of the referee and then he decides to cut back infield.

“If we allow that try to be disallowed on that basis, we’ll have players making contact with the referees in multiple instances where they’ll be claiming that they’d been disadvantaged and asking for tries to be overturned. 

“That was purely a choice by the defender and the line that he ran.”

Making contact with the referee has cost Storm half Jahrome Hughes a one-game suspension even though his club issued a statement to say 

Hughes pushed referee Chris Butler when the referee found himself between the halfback and Warriors centre Rocco Berry as the Storm defended their line during Saturday night’s game. 

The referee tumbled to the ground and the morning after Melbourne’s come-from-behind win, Hughes received a grade-two contrary conduct charge.

The Storm issued a statement on Monday saying they didn’t agree with the grading of the charge but didn’t want to risk a two-game ban by challenging it.

If found guilty at a hearing, Hughes would have also missed their round-five heavyweight clash against Brisbane, which would have meant three weeks sidelined given their round-four bye.

“We are disappointed that an unsuccessful challenge on the grading would have also resulted in an extra week suspension,” the club said.

“We believe the risk of the penalty for contesting the charge is too high considering the circumstances of the incident.

“In the end, the threat of an extra week suspension on top of our club’s (round four) bye was the overriding factor in our decision but we don’t believe this is a fair outcome.”

Melbourne said while they support the protection of refereees, they believe the collision was an “accident”.

“Further, we believe the contact was unavoidable and the grading on the incident was too harsh given the circumstances where Jahrome was concentrating on making an important tackle in the context of the game and not fixated on the movements of the referee.”

Annesley refuted the Storm’s claims by saying there was no excuse for the incident.

“What we can’t do in our game is to send any kind of message that it’s OK to move the referee out of the way if he’s in the way. In our game, for as long as it’s been played, it’s never been acceptable to push a referee,” Annesley said.

“There will often be incidents where referees and players will have some kind of physical contact because they bump into each other due to circumstances.

“But it’s not acceptable to physically push a referee out of the way, regardless of the circumstances. We have to ensure that the match officials are protected.

“No one is saying he did anything maliciously. It just can’t happen. Whether it’s to make a tackle, whether it’s to save a try of whatever it is, you can’t take a decision to move the referee out of the way.”

Mitchell reacts to swearing drama 

Latrell Mitchell raised eyebrows with an expletive-laden radio cross on Thursday night, saying “f***” four times live on Triple M as he reflected on the Rabbitohs’ 28-18 loss to Brisbane.

The incident prompted NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo to publicly remind players to “be respectful” with their language during interviews.

Mitchell has not been sanctioned over the episode but the high-profile fullback’s choice of words nevertheless generated public scrutiny.

Mitchell took to social media on Monday to address the backlash, writing on his Instagram story: “There was no intent. No malice. Let’s move on.”

Rabbitohs skipper Cameron Murray shrugged the incident off as the team looked ahead to Friday’s grudge match against the Sydney Roosters.

“I didn’t see too much wrong with it,” he said.

“I know he’s a passionate man and I know all he wants to do is win. They’re two pretty good attributes that I think Latrell has and things that I’ll always back.

“Trell is Trell and I think what we do at this club really well is empower people to be themselves. I know if he had his time again, he’d probably be a little bit more selective about the words he chose.”

with AAP