Hasler, Foran react as costly call confuses great

Titans coach Des Hasler and captain Kieran Foran have been left to rue two costly calls after the side's 22-20 loss to the Storm.

With the score locked up at 20-20 in the second half, the Gold Coast looked like they may have scored the winner through AJ Brimson in the 57th minute.

However, the Bunker overturned the call, ruling Beau Fermor had obstructed Cameron Munster in the build up.

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Then with two minutes remaining, a captain's challenge from the Titans proved costly when Nick Meaney was judged to have been stripped off the ball by Jojo Fifita.

When speaking to referee Belinda Sharpe at the time, Foran couldn't believe it. 

"He's trying to offload the ball," he pleaded.

"How can you call that a strip? You can't do it."

League great James Graham was equally as confused.

"Whoever's in the Bunker has clearly never played the game of rugby league in their life because there's no attempt to strip. Oh dear," he said on Fox League.

"… I don't understand that … I'm sorry the Titans probably wish they didn't have their challenge at this time because that's a horror call."

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Speaking post-match, Hasler didn't even need to be asked on the decisions before giving his opinion.

"You're going to probably ask about contentious calls. Yep, sure they're contentious. You get some and you lose some, unfortunately the one's that you lose are always the hardest," he said.

"We can talk for half a day about the strip there at the end, was it a strip? At the end of the day it doesn't help the result in anyway.

"The obstruction call, they (Storm) played it well. I just feel if Beau Fermor had of gone any further in to the inside shoulder of Munster then he probably runs to the next defender in and I think you might see Reimis Smith made a defensive play at it so that's all I can really say on that.

"But we had our opportunities, it's probably one we should've won tonight."

Pressed further on the strip call, Hasler simply replied: "It is what it is."

Clearly frustrated, Foran expanded on his thoughts, describing the strip decision as "interesting".

"As Des said, we're not going to blame the calls for the result tonight," he said.

"We got some go our way, some went against us but the one at the end was an interesting call."