One Warriors fan who's had enough of the NRL refs has started a Givealittle page to help out coach Andrew Webster.
The Warriors lost to the Penrith Panthers this weekend, with the referee giving two Warriors players yellow cards during the match. Coach Webster wanted to have a go at the refs but told reporters he needs them to shout the cost of the fine he'd get if he did.
"I get asked this every week," he said after the game. "I'm going to take a hat around and get you guys to pay for my fine — if you all want to chip in I'll give you whatever you want."
Well mate, no hats will be needed here as one fan has set up a fundraiser to community source the money for the fine. 'Cover the cost of Webby's NRL fine' is the name of the page, which has currently raised $724 with a goal of $10,000.
"Fundraising some money for Webby so he can speak his bloody mind about the poor officiating and bias against the Warriors," the page's description reads.
The page's creator also wants the money to go towards "a proper investigation into it and to set a standard for the officiating of the game to be unbias, fair and some bloody consistency for once and all."
Jason Paris, chief executive of One NZ (formerly Vodafone), shares the belief that the Warriors aren't being reffed fairly and took to Twitter to testify against the officiating crew and the NRL as a governing body.
"Are you kidding me?" Paris wrote. "How biased are the NRL and referees against the NZ Warriors? Have they got money on them to lose?"
"It's like we are permanently against 14 on the field and they want us to play with 12. Huge courage from the boys."
Constructing his conspiracy further, Paris pointed to the Warriors' recently packed schedule as evidence the NRL has it out for the boys.
"It's absolutely outrageous and so incredibly frustrating," he replied to a tweet saying the NRL are threatened by the Warriors' good form. "Imagine how the team feel - 11 days and then this rubbish."
"Cheating of the highest order," he added.
