"The biggest thing is we don't have big-name players. You look at other clubs – Manly, Storm, Bulldogs, South Sydney. Why are they going well? Because they are wrestling in tackles.

"They are getting away with things that we wouldn't get away with. I don't know what it is – but because we don't have those big-name players we don't get treated like they would ... Because we don’t have the big name players or superstars in our forward pack [does that mean] we can’t dominate the tackles?”

That early defensive workload took its toll on Parramatta, who had the ball for just four of the opening 14 sets on Friday night. Canterbury raced in three tries within 29 minutes as they capitalised on their possession.

"Straight after the game I was speaking with [coach] Brad [Arthur] about the first four penalties,” Hayne said.

"We [were] just left shaking our heads. There is no explanation from our point of view for what we did wrong. We are playing footy. We are getting in there and dominating the tackle and there was one time there that there was nothing in it. They [the refs] gave them a penalty for literally no reason.