Dragons coach Jamie Soward has questioned the way NRLW fixtures are being officiated this season after his side's clash with the Roosters on Thursday saw a whopping 16 penalties blown through 70 minutes.
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The Dragons missed the jump and were thoroughly outgunned in the second stanza to go down 30-0, but Soward's grip with ruck infringements carried over from last week following his side's big win over the Eels.
In total, the visitors were penalised nine times, while the Roosters were pinged on seven occasions in a whistle-happy performance from referee Wyatt Raymond.
While he didn't blame the count for his side's loss, admitting his side's 65 missed tackles was a bigger factor, Soward said the still developing women's game shouldn't be officiated in the same way as the men's.
"I don't have the 10,000 [dollars] to spend, but 16 penalties in a game for me is way too many," Soward said.
"We need to understand, and I spoke about this last week, the ruck is not the same as the men's. Play the ball speed of 3.8 and 3.4 [seconds], that is quicker than the men's game.
"We're asking for it to be quicker than the men's game. It's never going to happen. The girls are going to wrestle different, they're going to get into tackles different, they're going to get out of tackles slower.
"To have 16 penalties, and a ruck speed faster than the men's, who are full-time professionals and have been playing it for 100 years, I just want clarification of what we're looking to try and get so that we're even.
"Again, we lost the play this ball speed by 0.5 or 0.4. It's hard to watch."
The Dragons also had three tries disallowed while trailing 12-0 in the opening the half, with the bunker denying Tyla Nathan-Wong a try after ruling prop Tara McGrath-West had got a fingernail to a loose ball in the lead-up.
Raecene McGregor's long ball that saw Cortez Tu Pou cross untouched in the corner was also called forward, with Soward non-plussed over both calls.
"I don't know why we look to not give a try when it goes to the bunker," he said.
"If you can see that Tara McGrath-West touches the ball... we had 10 looks at it, are we definitely sure that she touched the ball? If he sends it up a try, it comes back a try.
"If he sends it up and just says 'I've got no idea' and just be honest, he didn't see it, which is fine. You're allowed to say that, we all make mistakes, then let the bunker decide. That's what it's there for.
"You can't say no try and influence that decision because, regardless of the end score, at that time we needed that. Forward passes, we're seeing more and more let go. I felt like they had a couple of forward passes that were let go as well."
While his side appeared to run out of juice, Soward wasn't reaching for a brutal five-day turnaround as an excuse, with the Roosters dealt the same hand following a shock loss to the Raiders last week.
"The short turnaround, they were off it as well and probably handled it better," Soward said.
It's the same for both teams. We missed 65 tackles tonight. It's always going to be hard [when you do that]. It was 12-0 for a big chunk of it there after we started slow, we just missed some one on one tackles.
"The girls tried really hard and I'm always proud of them. We've just got get the weekend off, it's been a hectic couple of days prepping and stuff like that.
"I love what I do and I love being the coach and the frustration isn't at the team or the game. It's more around [the fact] I just see the hard work and I just want them to feel that reward. They felt it last week.
"we just need to make sure that we get it right because we've got a home game next week. We've just got to get back to the drawing board."
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
