Batley Bulldogs coach Matt Diskin disgruntled by “obvious bias”

Disgruntled Batley boss, Matt Diskin. PIC: Jonathan Gawthorpe

Bulldogs had Tom Lillycrop and Lewis Galbraith sin-binned for dissent during their 38-12 defeat by Toulouse Olympique in the Betfred Championship. Toulouse took control in the second half after Bulldogs led 12-10 at the interval, and Diskin said: “I thought in the first half we were okay; I thought the second half was refereed with some quite obvious bias.

“We have come across that in the last few weeks – referees are refereeing full-time teams differently to what they are part-time teams.

“I thought that showed; there were a couple of key decisions that changed the momentum in the second half and we couldn’t get back in the game.”

Lewis Galbraith, red-carded for dissent. PIC: Paul Butterfield

Diskin said he has attempted to raise the matter with the Rugby Football League (RFL), adding: “You try to speak to the RFL department at Red Hall and there’s no response, they don’t want to entertain you, so you’re left to try to deal with stuff yourself.

“That’s not condoning the two players that were sin-binned; mouthing at the referee is unacceptable and I’ll deal will that accordingly.

“There will be fines in place for them, but I can understand the frustration when you see full-time teams being refereed differently to part-time teams.”

It was Batley’s seventh defeat in eight games and they are now 12th in the table.