The Wests Tigers were robbed of an opportunity to snatch victory against the Canberra Raiders on Sunday afternoon, with revelations they were denied a tackle in the dying minutes of the NRL clash.
The Tigers were forced to turn over possession when the referees called a premature end to their set of six in the 78th minute.
Tigers centre Chris Lawrence was incorrectly ordered to hand over the ball after the referees signalled the last tackle a play too early, short-changing the Tigers of a tackle that would have provided them with one more chance to steal the win.
The Tigers, who surrendered a 22-point lead at Leichhardt Oval, were trailing 24-22 at the time they were denied the extra play.
The Tigers were rucking the ball out of their own half at the start of the set of six under scrutiny, with James Tedesco taking the first tackle.
Pat Richards and Dene Halatau were the next two players tackled, but a series of offloads in the next play confused the officials, with leading referee Henry Perenara putting his hand in the air to indicate the last tackle after just the fourth.
Lawrence was then tackled on the halfway line and the Raiders were provided with golden field possession to put the result beyond doubt.
From the ensuing set, the Raiders crossed in the corner through Jordan Rapana and sealed the victory.
Perenara was dropped after he and Matt Cecchin allowed Cronulla to score a controversial seventh-tackle try which proved decisive in their playoff clash with North Queensland in 2013.
NRL referees boss Tony Archer admitted there was an error: "Upon our initial review, we are aware of the fact that the Tigers were denied one tackle late in the match at Leichhardt Oval.
"I have raised it with the match officials and it will form part of our assessment of the match on Monday."
It was another twist on a controversial afternoon at the iconic ground, with the Tigers also denied a try that would have likely clinched the victory with four minutes remaining.
The referees correctly ruled Robbie Farah had illegally gained an advantage after running behind prop Keith Galloway to put in a grubber that led to a Luke Brooks try.
While Tigers fans were up in arms about the decision, that was also confirmed by the video referees, Tigers coach Jason Taylor had no problems with it.
"That's the rule," Taylor said.
"You can't run around your own player and gain an advantage, The fact we scored a try at the end of it, I suppose that's an advantage isn't it?
"We don't practise running around behind each other. For me, that was a sign we weren't playing what we practised. We're clearly still a way off in relation to how we play and where we want to be as a team."
The Tigers butchered a 22-0 lead after 25 minutes, leaking 30 unanswered points to lose the game.
"Disappointed but in the end we got what we deserved," Taylor said.
"An NRL game goes for 80 minutes and we have been talking about that. We want to be more consistent across the course of that 80 minutes. As a club and a team we identified that at the start of the year....and it's still what we need to improve.
"The way we defended before half-time wasn't good enough. We worked hard to rectify that in the second half and we did, that wind was really tough. Those tries we let in before half-time really hurt us. Letting those two tries in before half-time was disappointing. It was great to score those points but we needed to defend our line harder than we did. Those tries were too easy. The wind was always going to be a factor in the second half."
