Daniel Atkinson has personally taken the blame for Cronulla being denied a potentially match-winning field goal against Newcastle, saying referees were right to penalise the Sharks for illegal blockers.
It comes as the NRL's head of football Graham Annesley hit back at Knights coach Adam O'Brien for his impassioned critique of the pair of similar calls from Sunday's game at PointsBet Stadium.
Both Atkinson and Newcastle fullback Kalyn Ponga had successful field goals rubbed out during the final minutes of the home side's win after their teammates were ruled to have prevented the defence from making a clear run towards the ball.
Referee Gerard Sutton cited the Knights' Mat Croker and Adam Elliott, and then Cronulla forwards Cam McInnes and Royce Hunt, as obstructing the defence in the lead-up to the would-be one-pointers.
During the pre-season, the NRL sent clubs a memorandum that reiterated this rule, which states that an attacking player may be penalised if "in relation to a field goal, (the player) takes up a position near the play the ball and, in the opinion of the referee, obstructs a defender(s) regardless of whether there is physical contact."
Atkinson slotted a field goal in extra time to win the game and likely end Newcastle's finals hopes, but O'Brien believed his team's field goal should have been awarded earlier.
"I thought their's (Atkinson's) was a field goal as well," O'Brien said after the 19-18 loss.
"But Graham (Annesley, NRL head of football) will find a way to dress it up."
Atkinson could understand the decision to deny the Sharks their field goal, though, admitting he had called for the ball at the wrong time.
After having another field goal attempt charged down moments earlier, Atkinson said he had become trigger happy and forgot to ensure his teammates had cleared his path for a field goal.
"It was just dumb by me, to be honest," he said.
"I had blockers there, I just got excited because it was a quick play-the-ball. It was a fair call (from the referee).
"It didn't rattle me. It was probably just more, 'I shouldn't have taken that'."
Annesley made mention of O'Brien's "dress it up" jab as he stood by Sutton's refereeing in his weekly briefing on Monday afternoon.
"If that's 'dressing it up', I'll cop it on the chin. It's factual, it's the rules of the game. Players and coaches have to abide by those rules or suffer the consequences," he said.
Annesley revealed aside from the memorandum circulated to clubs, the NRL had met with coaches in the pre-season to discuss the rule and trained the referees to police illegal field goals accurately.
"We've eliminated most of them because we were open and transparent about it," Annesley said.
"To the credit of most clubs, they have fixed it. We've seen field goals attempted throughout the course of the season where there are no blockers.
"I've said on multiple occasions throughout the course of the year: If you do not want to take the risk of having field goals disallowed, don't put these players (blockers) in this position. You're inviting the referee to take the action.
"Obstruction. Blockers. Case closed."
Annesley also stood by Sutton's decision to sin bin Knights halfback Phoenix Crossland for holding Jesse Ramien down and preventing him from playing the ball as the Sharks attacked Newcastle's line in the shadow of halftime.
O'Brien called the decision "ridiculous" as it was only the third ruck infringement or offside penalty the visitors had conceded to that point in the game.
But Annesley said professional fouls could result in sin bins regardless of prior instances.
"My personal opinion is there is absolutely nothing ridiculous about this decision at all," he said.
"That's a professional foul, that's not a regular holding down penalty."
