By JARROD POTTER
DANDENONG WNBL coach Mark Wright has blasted WNBL’s refereeing on the brink of the finals.
Wright questioned the subpar refereeing in the Rangers’ three-point overtime loss to Townsville on Sunday night.
With a 21-11 foul count favouring Townsville by the end of the 77-80 point nail-biter – and at times as lopsided as eight-to-20 – Wright could not believe the Fire failed to be called for fouls considering Dandenong’s attacking playing style.
“You can’t help but questioning the imbalance in foul shooting and fouls,” Wright said.
“Playing with one arm tied behind your back – it’s one thing you can accept when you go away to another state – you expect to not get a good go of the refs – but when you come home again you’d expect that it might be fair and just.
“I don’t think a team can go through a whole half without going to the foul line as we’re a penetrating and attacking team.”
It followed up a heated clash on Friday night with Adelaide as Dandenong fell out of favour with the referees, as star forward Penny Taylor received two technical fouls and was ejected from the match – forced to watch on from the Whyalla change rooms.
With the WNBL at its peak for star players – including Dandenong’s WNBA duo Penny Taylor and Cappie Pondexter – Wright believes the standard of refereeing needs to increase dramatically to keep up with the players.“So I don’t understand it – I see fouls and the referees don’t,” Wright said.
“For me I’m sick of hearing that it’s not their call – excuses, excuses but again we need to get the refereeing quality up to the players’ quality.”
“(WNBL referees manager) Peter Carey can only put in the referees he’s got, so if they’re better than the ones we’ve had this weekend, then that would be great, but if they’re not, well that would just be normal I guess.
“I don’t envy his job of trying to put the right people into the games as this league is fantastic and the players are fantastic and the officiating needs to come up to that standard.
“You’re concentrating solely on the refs’ good or bad calls – so I’m hoping we can get some decent refs that we don’t notice.”
Dandenong faces Sydney Uni in a WNBL semi-final at home Saturday from 3pm.
