If you're feeling hard done by because of the Bunker or the referee, you do not need to apologise for that. They deserve to have questions asked about what happened on that field, and those questions are being asked.
I'm happy to tell you that Warriors chief executive Cameron George has written to the NRL seeking a please-explain. Jason Paris, who of course used to be the boss of the Warriors' naming-rights sponsor, One New Zealand, has also written a column for the Herald taking aim at the Bunker, despite the trouble he's got into in the past for criticising referees.
Now, I'm not going to make excuses for how the Warriors played because, once again, in a really high-stakes game, they choked. But there was a clear path to victory for them if the Bunker and the referee had given them a fair shake.
If they hadn't lost the captain's challenge on the Te Maire Martin stripping decision, when it clearly wasn't a strip, they would still have had that captain's challenge in their back pocket. They then could have used it when Leka Halasima went down and there was a stoppage in play.
Had they used it to prove that Tyson Frizell was running an escort, they might have received the penalty. And had they got that penalty, they were right in front of the posts. They could have knocked over the two points, levelled the scores at 12-all, gone into extra time and who knows what might have happened. It was sport, it was a Warriors crowd, and you never know.
It was so frustrating standing there, watching that Tyson Frizell play shown over and over again on the big screens without anything being done about what appeared to be a clear infringement.
And the NRL might want to reflect on that. I don't know if they will but they should consider it because what it did was reinforce, not just to a crowd and not just to a big national television audience, but to everyone watching, the long-held sentiment that the referees are unfair on the Warriors.
We've heard that claim time and time again and then we stood there watching something that seemed to support it.
An explanation to Cameron George would be a really good place to start. But in the meantime, if you're feeling aggrieved about it, that's entirely fair.
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