The Cronulla Sharks were left fuming over the officiating on Saturday night as Shaun Johnson produced a magical finish to his NRL career to guide the Warriors to victory. Johnson had three try assists – including one in the dying seconds – as the Warriors stunned the Sharks 30-28 in the final game of the halfback’s career.
But the fairytale farewell was marred by controversy after the Sharks copped a contentious sin-bin in the second half that turned the whole game. Cronulla led 22-4 at the break, but the Warriors scored five second-half tries to snatch victory.
Two of those tries came after Kayal Iro was sent to the bin for a high shot on Dallin Watene-Zelezniak – a call that sparked controversy. Watene-Zelezniak slipped into the tackle, and Iro appeared to be powerless to prevent making contact with his head.
“They need to sort this out before September (finals), because it’s got to ridiculous proportions,” Phil Gould said in commentary for Channel 9. “This has been going on for a few weeks, but it’s got ridiculous. Coaches, fans, players are all frustrated, and they don’t know how to get themselves out of it.”
Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon said it feels like the NRL have ordered a crackdown on high tackles just weeks from the finals. Twenty-four hours after Ivan Cleary questioned the amount of stoppages in Penrith’s win over South Sydney, Fitzgibbon had his own complaints on Saturday night.
Cronulla were penalised three times for high shots in the second half, leading to concerns that Warriors players were staying down to milk penalties. A season-high 30 penalties were blown for high tackles last weekend, adding to the 27 that were given in each of the previous two rounds.
“We’ve got to protect the players because we don’t want to see high shots. I get it, we want it out of the game,” Fitzgibbon said. “But to wait until a couple of weeks before the semis to start doing a crackdown, that (second-half) period was a disaster.
“It was stop-start, stop-start, stop-start, and then gamesmanship starts to come into it. We’re stopping and starting game after game after game. We want to see good footy in the semis. This is the time of the year we should be cheering and letting the game flow.”
Sharks captain Cameron McInnes said he had received no warning from referee Chris Butler before Iro was sin-binned. “It’s frustrating because you probably struggle to see the consistency and every tackle is different,” McInnes said.
“I thought as much as he got hit in the head, there was a bit of falling of body position into it. As a rugby league player, you’re taught to play hard and things happen. That gamesmanship is tough to take, but at the same time it’s not an excuse for us.”
The controversy came as Johnson capped his NRL career in perfect fashion. With the Warriors down 28-26 in the final minute of his 268-game career, Johnson threw a perfect two-man cut-out ball for Watene-Zelezniak to score the winner.
“It feels good. It feels very good to finish that way,” Johnson said. “A couple of the boys just said you can’t finish with a touch (footy) highlight. That was the zone I was in, it was as simple as enjoying what we were doing.”
