NRL: Warriors vow to be right side of whistle

Jacob Lillyman says his view of Aussie refs changed when he crossed the Tasman to play for the Warriors. Photo / Getty Images

Having suffered some rough justice in last year's painful playoff exit on the Gold Coast, the Warriors are intent on making sure the result of tomorrow night's qualifying final against the Broncos isn't left in the referees' hands.

A number of crucial calls went against the Warriors in that 28-16 defeat last season, the most telling a bizarre not-square-at-marker penalty against Sam Rapira when he appeared to be standing directly in front of the man playing the ball.

That call changed the game, the Titans running in three late first-half tries to leave the Warriors cursing both their ill fortune and inability to halt the dramatic momentum swing.

Prop Jacob Lillyman, who admits his impression of how Australian referees treat the Warriors changed dramatically when he joined the New Zealand club from the North Queensland Cowboys, said the refereeing had been more even-handed this season.

"I think it's got a bit better but still, you never know," Lillyman said.

"Anything we can do to take it out of their hands is going to help us in the long run."

Lillyman felt the Warriors were particularly up against it when it came to getting a fair shake at the business end of the season.

"Generally the experience we've had is that we've always been on the rough side of those calls in so many different games," he said.

"I think we're always going to be up against it in that respect. We've just got to take it out of [the referees'] hands and don't let the game come down to those sorts of decisions."

That meant helping themselves by limiting the impact of any controversial calls. The mid-season meltdown against the Tigers had provided a particularly pointed lesson about the need to halt momentum swings.

"This year we're a bit better at that," he said.

"We went through that Tigers match where we absolutely threw the game away. Now I think we can identify when the tide is starting to turn. That's usually when the ref is helping the opposition out and those sort of calls go against you.

"But I think we have the guys now to identify when that's happening and know it's time to stem the flow a bit."

Jared Maxwell and Shayne Hayne will control tomorrow night's game.

The Warriors have a decent record under Hayne in particular, having won 15, lost 13 and drawn one of the 29 matches played under his control.

That compares favourably with their results under the likes of senior NRL whistler Tony Archer, under whom the club has won just 13 of 34 matches.

Should the Warriors fail to beat Brisbane and either the lower-ranked Knights or Cowboys pull off an upset, their season will again be over in the first week of the finals.

Lillyman, whose impressive form since switching to prop won him a Queensland Origin recall this season, doesn't believe that's going to happen.

"I don't think I've been in a team before that has had this much confidence. We know we have so much ability within the team that we can do really well.

"It's just a matter of transferring that confidence to game-day performance. I think we can really do that and give it a fair shake."