NRL: Video ref ruling hands Bulldogs win over Warriors

Ben Barba of the Bulldogs saves a try being scored by Kevin Locke of the Warriors. Photo / Getty Images.

The Warriors lost 32-18 to the Bulldogs today but, if one knife-edge decision had been reversed, it very easily could have been very different.

In their first game at Mt Smart Stadium this season, the Warriors got off to yet another slow start before a Feleti Mateo-inspired comeback brought them within reach. Another moment of Mateo magic appeared to put the Warriors in front with 10 minutes remaining, but the video referee had other ideas.

In a marginal decision, Pat Reynolds ruled Warriors' wing Kevin Locke failed to ground the ball before his hand slid over the touchline in the left corner. Replays appeared far from conclusive and the benefit of the doubt, which was supposed to be awarded to the attacking team, was conspicuous by its absence.

The Bulldogs scored almost immediately to put the game out of reach, before adding gloss to the scoreline in the final minute with their sixth try.

Unsurprisingly, both coaches had wildly differing views of the incident, with Canterbury coach Des Hasler inviting an inquisitive reporter to view the replay with him, while Warriors' coach Brian McClennan left little doubt as to his version of events.

"For my money, I'd thought he'd got it," he said. "You just have to carry on - they make a ruling, you've got to respect it and move on.

"But, as I say, it looked good to me. Can't do much about it."

His captain was singing from a similar songsheet, refusing to blame the contentious decision for the Warriors' loss.

"That's the ruling they give and, obviously, they didn't see any of the ball on the ground," Simon Mannering said. "Every time it goes upstairs it's never a certainty, so you just wait and say, 'whatever's coming next, boys, just get on with it'.

"You don't know what's going to happen when it goes upstairs."

That is the sometimes whimsical nature of the video referee, and the Warriors wouldn't have been requiring a green light had they come out of the blocks quicker.

At the mid-point of the first half, the Warriors were yet to have an attacking set inside the Bulldogs' red zone, with the visitors' advantage reflected in the tacking statistics. At 16-0 down, the Warriors had made 80 tackles to the Bulldogs' 33, while the hosts had also missed 10 tackles.

It was the third straight game the Warriors had fallen behind early - after trailing Manly 16-0 in their season-opening loss and Parramatta 8-0 during last week's win - and McClennan admitted that needed to be amended.

"We know we have to get off to better starts and we'll work on that during the week," he said. "We'll go back, look at the video and just look for ways of trying to improve and get a handle of this, to see if we can get a better start in games."

McClennan paid credit to his opponents' clinical attacking in the opening half, especially when they broke the Warriors' line. Hasler did agree with that sentiment but thought his side played the game in stages.

"We played competently early," he said. "As soon as we lost our way with the ball and fell away with our discipline, they put two quick tries on us and found their way back into the game."

Those tries were both from the hand of Mateo, who played a pivotal role off the bench and added his own try in the second half.

McClennan called Mateo's efforts "very good", and if Locke had managed to dot down Mateo's last superb pass, that would have been an understatement.