SALFORD RED DEVILS head coach Paul Rowley did not mince his words in his post-match press conference following his side’s 18-15 loss to St Helens yesterday afternoon.
The Red Devils were 15-2 up at half-time before conceding 16 points without reply in the second-half with a number of contentious calls along the way.
For Rowley, it’s safe to say that he wasn’t happy with the refereeing performance from Jack Smith.
“That’s three home games in a row now where we have been absolutely let down by the officials. It’s so hard,” Rowley said after the game.
“If we had won the game I would have probably have come in and said the same thing.
“I have watched Jack (Smith) a few times on telly and I think he’s been a disgrace a few times this year.
“Clearly Chris Kendall and Liam Moore are the best two refs because they get all the cup finals. But we don’t get them too much so we must be deemed ‘poor-quality games’.
“I’m usually quite measured and I take my time and I don’t like to criticise as we’ve lost, but the gloves are off for me here.
“Games are very much divided by officials, quite often, the obvious response to that is they don’t do a forward pass or miss a tackle but they don’t get battered 25 times a game.
“In the last two games we have been on the wrong side of things and I never tread that path with the players, I always worry what we can do better but I’m finding it very hard to hit the players with a stick as they did everything we asked of them.
“The game was decided by the officiating, I can’t be any clearer than that. I think it’s factual – I know it’s factual – I don’t think I can be criticised for saying how it is.”
Rowley’s side slipped to their seventh loss in a row, with the Red Devils now seventh in the Super League table and at risk of not making the play-offs.
