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New Zealand coach Stephen Kearney says three contentious video referee decisions cost his side a crucial 12-point half-time lead in the Anzac Test at Canberra Stadium.
Instead, the luckless Kiwis had to settle for 6-6 at the break in a game where the Kangaroos got the rub of the green all night to win 32-12.
A fourth controversial video referee decision that awarded Greg Inglis a 51st minute try sparked a four-try Kangaroo blitz in just 11 minutes to put the game out-of-reach for the fading visitors.
“We probably deserved to be up 18-6 at half time with the tries that were disallowed,” Kearney said.
“That would have been nice going into half time.
“But still no excuse for going out there in the second half and leaking that many points.”
Dean Whare and Frank Pritchard were both denied four-pointers within five minutes while the Kiwis were asserting their dominance courtesy of a favourable breeze.
But it was lock Alex Glenn’s 23rd-minute effort, when he slammed the ball down over the line, only for it to be ruled knocked on, that was Kearney’s biggest point of contention.
“That’s why I guess they’re (video referees) up there, that’s their role, to get those decisions right. And I thought it was a try,” Kearney said.
Captain Kieran Foran agreed, highlighting Inglis’s try as the decision he felt most hard done by.
“I thought there were a couple of cases there where it could have been called a no-try,” he said.
“With (Cameron) Smith running behind (Paul) Gallen and then (Billy) Slater touches it again as it goes forward.
“I was just trying to let them know but they obviously didn’t see that.”
However Foran added there was no point in blaming the referees.
“We went out there in the second half and let ourselves down,” he said.
“But it would have been nice for a few calls to go our way.”
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