Cartwright's ref attack well wide of the mark
14.09.2009
By Dan Koch. Comment.
SINCE their arrival in the NRL three years ago, the Gold Coast Titans and head coach John Cartwright have added enormously to the rugby league landscape.
With managing director Michael Searle, Cartwright has taken the Titans from a dream and turned them into a serious premiership contender in just three years. He is highly respected by his players and well-liked throughout the competition.
However, Cartwright's bitter and misplaced post-match rant about the officiating in Saturday night's thrilling south-east Queensland derby at Skilled Park did himself, his club and the game a disservice. While the NRL allows coaches and players to voice, within reason, their views on match officials, the increasing desire for them to use this as a crutch to mask the failings of their team is becoming tiresome in the extreme.
Referees, video referees and touch judges are human, just like coaches and players. Members of all parties are guilty of mistakes. In a game as fast and as intense as Saturday night's Titans-Broncos match, no one is going to get everything right and for Cartwright to suggest the whistle-blowers' mistakes cost his side the chance of victory is to ignore completely the input of players from both sides.
It is insulting to the Broncos, who were the better side in what was one of the most entertaining matches in recent memory. And it conveniently glosses over some of the errors made by the men in blue and gold. By the count of the official match statistician the Titans made 11 errors ... missed 34 tackles as well.
Certainly, there was some conjecture over the try awarded to Israel Folau in the first half in which he collided with Chris Walker during his pursuit of a Peter Wallace bomb. But had winger David Mead -- one of the outstanding contributors for his side -- not spilt a kick he would normally take, that entire conversation would be moot.
Criticism from Cartwright's assistant Trevor Gillmeister yesterday, regarding the central referee's decision not to stop the game when he was tending to an unconscious Mat Rogers was equally off the mark. In his weekly newspaper column, Gillmeister suggested he was pleading for the referees to stop the match with the Broncos ``pressing our line''.
Except, at the time he was treating Rogers, play was some 30m upfield and on the other side of the park.
And the Titans had possession.
The real problem was a short inside pass from inspirational skipper Scott Prince ended up in the giant paw of Broncos prop David Taylor. He dashed 35m to seal a famous win.
The four-pointer ended the Gold Coast's stellar second-half fightback. But the fact remains, when you score 32 points, you shouldn't lose the match.
Towards the end of his outburst, Carwright claimed, ``I hate doing it, because it was such a great game of footy''. We can only hope it is true -- that this was an aberration and not the start of him following the well-beaten path of coaches playing the blame game. For, as the saying goes, every time you point a finger at someone, remember there are three pointing straight back at you.
