Two New Zealand legends have backed the CEO of the Warriors’ main sponsor who claimed there was an “unconscious bias” towards his membership.
Jason Paris, chief govt of One NZ, initially accused NRL referees of “cheating of the highest order” in a tweet following New Zealand’s 18-6 loss to the Panthers.
On Monday, Paris retracted these claims and stated “all we want is consistency”.
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“A bit of interest in my support for the mighty @NZWarriors Just to clear things up – I do not think the @NRL referees are cheating,” he tweeted.
“They come to work everyday to do their best job for the game. My comments were made in the heat of the moment as a passionate fan.
“However, I do believe that there is unconscious bias happening every week against the Warriors & it needs to be addressed.
“All we want is consistency, but we are not getting it. Take opinions out of it & analyse the video footage from past games & compare our decisions vs other teams.
“I think it will find that we are being disadvantaged – then we can work out why & take steps to fix it. We will always back our team.”
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Now, Warriors legends Logan Swann and Dean Bell have echoed Paris’ claims and Swann has even taken the leap to contact the NRL.
“In the context of these games recently something needs to be said. You can’t keep sweeping it under the carpet,” Swann, who performed 195 video games for the Warriors, stated to Stuff.co.nz.
“For the first time in a long time, I have actually taken the time to contact the NRL in disgust with some of the calls and decisions that have been made by officials.
“I haven’t had a reply back, but I’ve never felt compelled to do that before.”
Swann additionally referenced two incidents previous to the Warriors and Panthers’ conflict which noticed debutant Demitric Sifakula despatched to the sin bin for a strike on Nathan Cleary.
“There was the shoulder charge during the Roosters game and the player (Sitili Tupouniua) went on to score a try in the set after,” Swann stated.
“Also in the Storm game, Reimis Smith went up to contest the ball and there was one camera angle that would have shown he touched the ball, they would have seen that if they slowed it down.
“But they didn’t bother going back to that camera angle again and went to a couple of other cameras to get the point across that there was no touch.
“So it’s really frustrating and to have quite a few people mentioning things, there really needs to be something done about it, otherwise it looks amateurish.
“The NRL is the greatest game on the planet, so they do need to make sure the people officiating the game are doing a good job, because at the moment it’s been substandard.”
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Meanwhile, Bell, who captained the Warriors’ debut staff in 1995, additionally referred to as for consistency from NRL referees.
“How I was brought up was that you’ve got to be better than the referee,” Bell stated.
“When games are so tight these days it does make a difference. I am torn, in that the Warriors have got to be better to win those games and especially with Andrew Webster in charge they’ll be the first to admit that.
“But it would be nice to have some consistency. You see other games and watch someone get a knock to the head and think he’s going to get penalised or sent to the sin bin, yet for some reason those calls aren’t happening for the Warriors at the moment.”
It has since been revealed that Paris might face a possible defamation payout for his feedback, value as much as $1 million.
That is in accordance with Sydney lawyer Paul McGirr who instructed The Daily Telegraph: “It appears to be defamatory to me, very much so, and it leaves very little doubt that he is referring to the person officiating the bunker (Butler) and also the referee (Smith)”.
He additionally stated Paris’ feedback labelling refereeing choices as “the worst cheating ever” prompt it’s worse that historic sporting scandals comparable to Lance Armstrong’s doping.
Rugby League Match Officials boss Matt Cecchin additionally confirmed his organisation has contacted legal professionals concerning Paris’ feedback.
Source: www.foxsports.com.au