Knights coach Adam O’Brien was frustrated with a contentious no call try against Bradman Best that could have given Newcastle the win in their golden point draw with Manly.
With the Knights trailing 32-28 in the 75th minute, Best looked to have scored a try and the conversion could have given Newcastle the lead, but the Bunker called it back for a bobble in the lead-up to the put down.
“I thought it was a try,” O’Brien said in his press conference.
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Newcastle Knights Press Conference | 07:07
“I’m assuming, did you guys think it was a try?”
Fox League’s Matt Russell noted it was an interesting call given the tweak to the rules that favours the attacking team in contentious put downs.
“Yeah he kept it in his arm, the question is did he lose control into the defending player when they look at multiple replays and slow it down,” Russell said.
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“But with the interpretation of the grounding of tries now being a bit more in favour of the attacking team I was interested to see what way they went. But you guys are the experts.”
O’Brien was reluctant to use the call as an excuse, but believes it was a pedantic call that should not have overturned Best’s try.
“I don’t want that to be the narrative that we are whinging about a try, but I thought it was a try,” O’Brien said.
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“I thought we had to look at it real hard. We had to pick fly shit out of pepper to find a reason.”
Despite having to share the points, O’Brien was proud of his team for pushing Manly all the way after finding themselves down 10-0 after nine minutes, but lamented their inability to close it out from 28-16 up in the second half.
“It was disappointing especially when we were at 28-16, but they are a good team and they have been together a while,” O’Brien said.
“If there is a team you don’t want to drag into a try-scoring contest or golden point it would be them.
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“It’s mixed. I’m disappointed, but as I said to the team at 10-0 down had you said we are going to walk away with 32-all and you are going to get Cherry-Evans to pull out three times from going for a field goal, meaning that you are going to have someone there pressuring him. I will take that. We didn’t have that last year.”
O’Brien praised four try hero Dom Young who answered his coach’s challenge after being dropped last week.
“I think his response after I left him out of the team, not only in the game that he played last week, he was the best player in our reserve grade,” O’Brien said.
“That is what you want when you get dropped from first grade you better be the best player in reserve grade the following week and he was, him and Jack Johns.
“He earnt his way back into the side. Hymel had a rib cartilage issue so it was an easy decision.
“We look like genius’ now putting him back in today and he scores a couple of tries.”
