ST HELENS head coach Paul Wellens is ruing the decision made by referee Aaron Moore to hand St Helens star Matty Lees a yellow card.
With Saints leading the Leigh Leopards by 12-4 with 15 minutes to go, Lees was sinbinned for a high tackle.
Leigh scored three times during the period that Lees was off the field with the Leopards eventually running out 20-12 winners.
Lees, however, wasn’t charged by the Disciplinary Match Review Panel and was instead cautioned as Wellens urged for more caution to be given in important decisions.
“When I was asked after the game, I was asked when I’d seen it live like everyone else and so took it in good faith that he had been sent from the field due to a high tackle,” Wellens said.
“There was no contact made with the head so I knew the Match Review Panel would agree with it. There is a little bit off frustration there, on first look I get it.
“As a game we have to be careful, when you don’t have replays you have to be 100% certain that there is high contact with the head and illegal contact made if you are sending blokes from the field.
“We lost a key player at the back end of an important game. Whether or not it did have a bearing on the result it is always tough to analyse, but it certainly didn’t help our situation.”
Wellens did acknowledge the tough jobs that referees have to do.
“Players have to make split second decisions and we tell players to keep emotions in check and that’s where I would say the officials got it wrong at the weekend.
“We know they have a really tough job, at first look on the night it did look like a high tackle so I get it but the officials are closer to the action than I was.
“I would have been comfortable with a penalty because that’s how it looked, but when you’re sending someone from the field and you’re not 100% sure that there has been contact around the head that’s where we get that little bit of frustration.
