Simmons slams referee

St Helens coach Royce Simmons says some of the penalties in their dramatic loss to Catalan on Friday were “an absolute joke”.

In just their second competitive game at the new Langtree Park stadium, St Helens fell to one of the most dramatic losses in Super League history, as Catalan scored a sensational try on the hooter, with Scott Dureau‘s touchline conversion snatching a 34-32 victory.

But Simmons, who saw his side surrender a 26-8 lead, was not happy at the performance of referee James Child.

He told the club’s official website: “Things started to go wrong for us when we had four penalties against us in a row and that meant we didn’t have possession for long periods.

“We got a couple of penalties in the first half, five I think and it should have been around 35. In the second half we got penalised and some of the things especially one of the incidents, I couldn’t understand why. 

“I thought it was a very ordinary performance from the referee, but take nothing away from Catalans.

“For the first 40 we were fantastic, played well and defended pretty good. When we didn’t get the penalties in the second half, we didn’t handle that situation very well. 

“But as I said, I will be ringing Stuart Cummings this week as some of those penalties were an absolute joke compared to the way we got hammered in the first half.”