St George Illawarra coach Steve Price has questioned the consistency of the 10-metre rule in Friday night's 36-20 loss to Brisbane and suggested that opposition teams were taking advantage of new rule interpretations by surrendering in tackles to gain a quick play-the-ball.
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Price, who insisted he was not blaming referees Gerard Sutton and Gavin Morris for the Dragons' first defeat of the season, said they each had a different interpretation of the 10 metres and were reluctant to blow penalties for the Broncos being offside.
"It was a funny game," Price said. "I thought it was a very fast game, there wasn't many penalties blown. It was tough to get a 10-metre penalty tonight."
Asked if he thought Sutton and Morris had been inconsistent, Price said: "Definitely, with two referees there . . . one was 10 or 11 metres, the other was seven to eight.''
While unhappy with the fragile defence that cost his team close to the line, Price said Brisbane had been able to generate momentum through quick play-the-balls and St George Illawarra couldn't hold them out.
"A lot of teams are starting to surrender and find the ground a fair bit, so it is something we need to work on as a collective group," he said.
Captain Ben Creagh said the Dragons needed to learn to slow down the speed of the ruck.
"The ruck was too quick; we didn't control the ruck well enough," Creagh said. "They controlled us most of the game; they had two and three in tackles and we just didn't. It was too quick."
Star recruit Gareth Widdop added: "It was a very quick game out there tonight, we were just on the back foot from the get-go and couldn't stop their momentum.''
Despite conceding two tries in the opening 10 minutes, the Dragons fought back in spectacular fashion to trail 18-16 in the 41st minute after winger Jason Nightingale swooped on a grubber kick from centre Dylan Farrell but the Broncos quickly regained the ascendancy.
"I thought they got back in the arm wrestle really well and we came back after half-time and scored a tremendous try but we didn't play with any major smarts there for a few minutes and they got us on the back foot," Price said.
"That's where the game was won, in that five- to eight-minute block. It was very disappointing, especially considering we had all the ascendency and the flow. We are still learning about ourselves, it has been a positive start and we put ourselves in a position tonight to win that footy game."
