Castleford Tigers coach Ryan Carr admits he felt the situation with the referees amounted to a ‘debacle’ in their defeat to St Helens on Saturday evening.
The Tigers’ quest to make Wembley ended after they were beaten 32-8 by Paul Rowley’s Saints, on a night in which many of the competition’s big hitters made it through to the quarter-finals of this year’s cup.
But Carr admitted he was left hugely frustrated by a number of decisions during the course of the evening. Without a video referee due to the lack of broadcasting at this stage of the competition, Carr conceded that he felt there was nowhere for the officials to hide: and he did not hold back his feelings on what he had seen.
He said: “I’ve got to be smart here in what I say, sometimes I’m a passionate bloke. I will get held accountable for my job and the players will too, 100 per cent. Yet, we can’t have things going like that.
“We don’t have a video referee tonight right? You take that away and it just goes into like.. I won’t say a debacle but I will, because I truly believe that. Because if you’re a rugby league fan, whether you’re a Castleford fan or someone else, it doesn’t matter.
“You can look at it from a neutral point of view and go.. wow. I said it last week, I feel sorry for my players and I still do.”
Carr insisted he had asked for a meeting with the RFL’s head of match officials after last weekend’s defeat – a request which was denied – but pleaded: “I ask for a meeting after last week and I didn’t get granted a meeting.
“I’m trying to do my best to work with it and get my team on the right path. But if I don’t get the feedback I’m asking for, well.. I just want personal feedback about the why and how.
“I get apologies from last week and I get it, there’s human error. I would never want to do that job, but it’s critical to a game. The try down here in the corner, where Feldt goes up and goes underneath a forward and it’s called play on.. it’s scary.”
When asked if he would seek a meeting this week, Carr said: “No. I’ve just got to get used to it, I think. I’m a bit too precious about it so I’ve got to get on with life and accept this is going to happen and be better than it.”
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