Titans coach Des Hasler has slammed a controversial Bunker ruling against his side that sparked a 12-point turnaround for the Storm, declaring “it was the wrong decision” based on what he’d been told by the NRL. The Storm left the Gold Coast with a sloppy 28-16 win in awful conditions, but it could’ve been a very different result had the Bunker not denied the home side a try that proved very telling as the visitors scored a minute later. Down 22-10 with 16 minutes remaining, Titans hooker Sam Verrills waited an eternity at the ruck to pick up the ball before he burrowed through some flimsy defence to score under the posts. The original decision was a six again to the Titans and a try on the field, but Kasey Badger in the bunker intervened and ruled that Verrills had burrowed through Tino Fa’asuamaleaui who had blocked Ryan Papenhuyzen from making a tackle. The Titans received the penalty but it didn’t help as Grant Anderson picked off a pass a few plays later to put the Storm further in front. “Kasey got it wrong. Again.” A fuming Hasler ended the press conference abruptly and received some support from Storm coach Craig Bellamy who didn’t see much wrong with the contact. Coaches have been told not to criticise officials, with North Queensland’s Todd Payten recently receiving a warning from head office. “I didn’t think there was a whole heap wrong with it when I watched it live, but I didn’t look at any slow motion (replays),” he said. “All of a sudden when we were trying to rearrange things, it got disallowed so I wouldn’t comment on it.”
