Nuffy
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"Milking, Chris. Milking."
That is what you heard from the ref nearly every time that Houston got tackled. Didn't matter how long the tacklers held him down for, if there was a second effort from them while getting to his feet.
"Milking, Chris. Milking."
Yep and every ref will get a cheat sheet prior to our game and it will say things like;
Look for stripping, so an opposition player drops it cold and they blow a penalty against us for stripping.
Its a process that feeds itself, the refs blow a stripping penalty and then in the washup, it confirms their belief and the feedback loop gets stronger.
I am sure that by the letter of the law, the 7 penalties tonight were justified, it's just that Souths were doing exactly the same thing and not getting pinged.
On Bennett I sometimes wonder whether he really is all in with us, by all means focus on accountability for the players, which he is doing and he doesn't sugar coat things but he rarely ever really rips the refs a new one after a game like that. Now I would have hoped the honeyed approach may have reaped dividends and I did thing we'd get a better run from the refs under him but that's not the case.
Plenty of other coaches have made pressuring the refs an art form and it's paid dividends, in our case we are usually getting screwed, like tonight and Bennett just shrugs his shoulders and the cycle continues.
If we don't get on the front foot so with the refs, we can expect more of the same.