The ball bounced inches inside the dead-ball line but, as they all loitered in front of the posts, not a single Tigers player was there to catch it and try to return it to the field of play, a good chance given few Newcastle players had bothered following the kick.
If it happened in schoolboy rugby league, serious questions would be asked. But the NRL?
Wests Tigers coach Benji Marshall (second from left) on the bench in Tamworth.Credit: Getty
To make matters worse, the ball bounced dead. Api Koroisau was forced to take a 20-metre dropout for the restart, and it took the Tigers more than two minutes to touch the ball again after the Knights earned a repeat set.
With little more than a minute left, Brent Naden scored against the 12 men of Newcastle (Daniel Saifiti was in the sin bin). Suddenly, the Tigers seemed to realise what was at stake. Jayden Sullivan rushed his sideline conversion attempt because they wanted one last crack to reel in the six-point deficit.
How handy would an extra couple of minutes have been?
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There’s no doubting the Tigers are a better team under Marshall than the one which plunged to a second-straight wooden spoon last year. They’re competitive in most games, losing only once by more than 20 points (against the Broncos). Lachlan Galvin has been a great find.
Yet, there’s no BS with Richo and there shouldn’t be at the Tigers. He’s been around long enough to know the only currency in the NRL that fans really care about is wins and losses.
The Tigers have lost their past six matches, and are thanking their lucky stars the awful Rabbitohs have taken most of the heat off them.
And just as Richo knows all too well, that won’t last forever, because little lapses can add up to big problems.
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