Sam Burgess backs Leeds Rhinos coach Brad Arthur over referee error claim in Warrington Wolves' dramatic win

Leeds led 10-6 at half-time and were 14-6 ahead before Warrington scored two tries in the final quarter to snatch a precious 16-14 victory - the second of those coming immediately after Rhinos’ Keenan Palasia was sin-binned for shoulder contact with an opponent’s head. Arthur didn’t make an issue of that incident, but was mystified at a heavy penalty count against his side in the second half and suggested he might need to “whinge more” about referees’ decisions.

The fact Burgess spoke to Grant as the official left the field at half-time didn’t go unnoticed by Leeds and asked about that in his post-match press conference, the Wolves coach revealed: “I just asked about a couple of forward passes which I thought were pretty obvious, at really important times. I just wanted to know if he thought they were forward at all.”

He said: “I know referees have got a tough job, but they were pretty important calls - and he has got two touch judges as well - so I wanted to know what was going on there. I felt like I had to ask that question. I wanted to know if I was seeing some different things. It was done in a good manner.”

Of Grant’s reply, Burgess said: “He said he called them as he saw them, which is fair enough. I think in review we’ll all see what happened.”

The game ended in controversy when Grant allowed the clock to run down as Leeds set for a scrum which would have given them one last chance to snatch a winning try in the final seconds. According to Arthur, the referee told his players the reason the clock wasn’t stopped was because they had only five players at the scrum. However, Rhinos were down to 12 at that stage and Arthur insisted: “They [match officials] need to know the rules; there’s only 12 players, five in the scrum - we had five in the scrum.”

On that, Burgess admitted: “I’d probably have to agree with him. I’m not beating up referees here, that is not my thing because they have a tough job, but I think they could do with some help. Did he get the scrum call wrong? Maybe. Does it define the result? There were three seconds on the clock so I’m not sure. There were some calls that could be really defining and they are the ones we’ve got to get right.”