Agar slams Child after loss

Richard Agar risked the wrath of the Rugby Football League after he launched a vitriolic attack on referee James Child following his side’s narrow defeat to Castleford.

Agar, fighting to save his job as Hull’s head coach, blamed his side’s 20-18 loss squarely at the feet of Child, who awarded 27 penalties on the night.

He said the players could not believe some of the decisions that went against them and that Child ruined a perfectly competitive match.

“I’m angry. I saw this bloke referee a trial game between Salford and Hull KR and I thought: ‘I’m dreading when we get him’,” he said.

“Sure enough he’s backed it up, just a disgraceful performance. I’ve got seasoned Test players in there coming in shaking their heads in disbelief.

“I thought both sides came to play, the game started great, a good tempo, everybody into it and it never got any flow and was punctuated by ridiculous decisions.

“It’s just been a good game and a good spectacle completely ruined by one bloke.”

Sean Long was sent off with four minutes to go for an apparent elbow-led tackle, moments after he had returned from the sin bin.

“If you’re going to sin bin people for that, sin bin everyone, not just one and be selective,” Agar added.

Baffling

“Sean Long has been dead-set cleaned out on their line at the end there, not even a penalty. Absolutely cleaned out around the head, the same as he was on the sin-bin. Absolutely baffling. They couldn’t even get the clock stopped properly.

“I’ve had the benefit of watching it on video and when he (Long) went in to score that try he was cleaned out. Plain and simple cleaned out, and he said he didn’t know where he was.

“He said he tried to shoulder charge a tackle and from what I saw he completely missed contact. A player of Castleford has ran 50 metres and begged for him to be sent off, which is ordinary.

“I don’t know what the point is talking about the game, the game was completely ruined by him (Child). It’s baffling. We’ve all come, so many fans from both sides. It was just completely ruined as a spectacle by him.

“He (Child) won’t be under pressure will he? He’ll be backing up in Super League next week and we’ll get a sheet round telling us all his decisions have been the right ones, I guarantee you that.”

Frustrated

Castleford coach Terry Matterson, who saw Child award 37 penalties in their season-opener with Wakefield, agreed with some of Agar’s comments but rejected the suggestion that his side had engineered Long’s sending off.

“We’ve had the referee twice and had two very similar performances,” he said. “There were 37 penalties in the first game and 27 tonight. I’m frustrated. We got the two points but it doesn’t hide the game never flowed into a rhythm.

“We didn’t play well but we got the two points and that’s the main thing.

“It’s difficult. Too stop-start, the fans didn’t pay for that. I didn’t think our discipline was that bad, it certainly hasn’t gone down and we haven’t played differently for the last six weeks. We haven’t coached them any different, I suppose that happens sometimes.”