Canterbury captain Josh Jackson has refused to blame their NRL loss to South Sydney on another refereeing blunder, saying they had an ample opportunity to claim victory.
Referee Ben Cummins was forced to apologise to Jackson on Friday after awarding Greg Inglis a try despite the Bulldogs skipper moving back into position following a conversation with the referee.
Jackson was called out by Cummins midway through the first half after repeated penalties close to the line, but was still racing back when play resumed and the Rabbitohs pressed immediately.
“I’m sorry Josh, I didn’t realise,” Cummins was heard telling Jackson after the try.
Bulldogs coach Dean Pay was livid with the decision, which cost his side six points in a game they were in control for the majority of before eventually going down by four.
“Your captain goes over to ask a question, he speaks to him, then he doesn’t allow him to get back into position, blows time on and that’s when they scored,” Bulldogs coach Dean Pay said.
However, Jackson insisted the call wasn’t the sole factor in the defeat, and instead called out his team for lacking better game management.
The Bulldogs were forced to play the final 50 minutes with 15 players following injuries to Moses Mbye (suspected jaw) and Aiden Tolman (ankle).
“He blew the try, then I went over to talk to him and I think it was after that that he realised what had happened. I was playing out in the centres and that’s exactly where they went,” Jackson said.
“It was about the penalties in the ruck, I think there’d been a number in a row on the tryline, (and he) basically just wanted me to get the team to fix that up.
“But I just want to say that I don’t blame them at all for the loss. We had plenty of opportunities to win that game. We turned over a hell of a lot of ball in the last 10-15 minutes on our own tryline.
“If you want to win a game of footy, with two men down, we’ve just got to get better at game management I think because we had every opportunity to win that one.”
Pay was also upset with the 14-10 penalty count, but also admitted his men should’ve prevented the Rabbitohs from scoring twice in the final five minutes to steal the win.
“Yeah we need to be better as a team, there’s no doubt about that. We had our opportunities to win that game,” he said.
“With everything that went against us … we turned over too much ball and we should’ve finished that game off and got the two points but we didn’t.”
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