Harris unhappy with penalty count

Crusaders’ coach Iestyn Harris felt the amount of penalties his side conceded away to Castleford on Sunday was not justified.

Crusaders lost 56-16 at the Probiz Coliseum last weekend, but Harris was unhappy with the amount of penalties referee Ben Thaler awarded to the home side.

Crusaders lost three men to the sin bin in the first half. Vince Mellars and Michael Witt were sin binned for running into a fight after nearly 20 minutes of the game played, while fullback Clinton Schifcofske was also shown the yellow card for deliberately interrupting play later in the game.

Harris said: “It’s tough when you have three men in the sin bin, it was a very difficult first half and a 15-3 penalty count makes it extremely difficult to compete.

“Whatever the decision is you can’t play and compete against a 15-3 penalty count, when its 22-0 at half time and you have front rowers who are tired because you’re down to 11 men.”

Despite his comments immediately after the game regarding the penalty count, Harris conceded that Castleford were still the better side and that he has problems in his own team regarding discipline.

He said: “Ultimately we do have a problem because we seem to be on the end of some very one-sided penalty counts at the moment. At the same time I don’t want to take anything away from Castleford, they were very good with the ball.

“When teams have more ball possession and have a higher percentage of the ball they always seem to look a little quicker and a little bit faster than you generally. If you control the ball and hold onto it, get the penalty counts then you tend to look a little bit fitter and a little bit faster than they do.”