I'd actually think Des Hasler instructed his team to do as much as they can to slow down the rucks and Souths's momentum based on the belief that the referees would be afraid to blow more than 10-12 penalties against his side. If you went through the game with a fine tooth comb, you could easily find another 4-6 incidents of hands in the play the ball, encroaching the player playing the ball, not letting the player get to his feet etc. that on another day, when the penalty count wasn't as high, would easily be penalised! I mean, how often do you see a team have 15-18 penalties blown against them? You could have easily penalised the bulldogs that many times but the referees were never going to do that for fear of being sacked, not given finals games etc. I've got a theory that in today's game referees WILL NOT have lop sided penalty count; it literally scares the s*** out of them! Just as Ashley Klein who blew 7 penalties against the Storm a few weeks ago against the Knights and got dropped to reserve grade. Referees have everything to lose by having a lopsided penalty count, the main accusation being a bias against a particular team; if the penalty count is reasonably even its alot more difficult for coaches, media etc. so say they are showing prejudice towards a particular football side. Even a few of the penalties against Souths tonight I thought were a bit cheap and reeked more of "even up the count" penalties. Just my thoughts.
