WITH 20 minutes to go and only four points separating the two sides, the Sharks were on the attack when the touch judge on the right sideline put his flag up presumably to signal a knock-on from Jesse Ramien.

The touchie quickly put his flag away but not before the Raiders players had seen it and stopped, allowing Sione Katoa to stroll in untouched.

Why it was sent to the bunker by Gerard Sutton, who saw the raised flag, is a fair question in itself, but the video referee’s decision to overturn the on-field no-try call was extraordinary given the circumstances.

Regardless of whether Ramien touched the ball or not, an official had motioned the play was over.

Round 20

The late 10-point lead proved too much for the Raiders to overcome despite a late try from their standout player Jordan Rapana.

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Fox analyst Braith Anasta didn’t hold back.

“It’s one of the worst refereeing perofrmances I’ve seen in the history of the game,” Braith Anasta told Fox League.

“Every player from the Raiders stops... everyone halts their play and they go on to score a try.

It was a critical moment in the game and could possibly cost the Canberra Raiders a semi-final.

“If I was Ricky Stuart I’d call the cops. They’ve been robbed, it’s horrible.”

Josh Hodgson managed to bite his tongue after the game only describing it as a “rough call”.

Although they failed to come out of the sheds in the second half, the Sharks were superb in the first 40, stamping themselves as premiership contenders.

They clinically sliced open the Raiders’ right edge at will with Wade Graham and Valentine Holmes putting the polish on their attacking raids.

“The Achilles heel for the Canberra Raiders has always been their right side defence and Wade Graham has been outstanding,” Fox League analyst Greg Alexander said.

“It’s obvious that the Sharks have targeted that left side of the field with Graham, Matt Moylan, Ricky Leutele and Edrick Lee. I think they’ve been terrific down that side of the field and the ball-playing of Wade Graham has been special.”

Anasta said the first half performance of Valentine Holmes was Billy Slater like.

“Fifteen tries in 17 games this season... if it was possible for Valentine Holmes to go to another level, well he has, he’s reached superstar status, that legendary status... I’d mention him in the same breath as Billy Slater.”

REPORT

The Raiders didn’t waste time putting themselves under pressure, with Dunamis Lui fumbling the pill in the play-the-ball.

Then fullback Brad Abbey dropped a towering spiral bomb and when Valentine Holmes picked up the loose ball with the line beckoning, Jordan Rapana dragged him down and held on too long, resulting in his sin-binning.

The Sharks took advantage of the extra man in the ninth minute.

Andrew Fifita received the ball with nothing on 15 metres out from the Raiders line. He charged forward pushed off Josh Hodgson and then shrugged off a poor attempt from Lui to pave a clear passage to the line.

As Rapana returned to the fray, Chad Townsend missed a fairly straight forward penalty goal attempt (aside from a stiff breeze), which would’ve pushed the home side out to an eight-point lead.

It was a blessing in disguise though, as they launched a deep attacking raid that culminated in one of the best tries we’ve seen this season.

Chad Townsend straightened up the attack,and found Matt Moylan who hit Wade Graham. The back-rower passed as he was being tackled to send Holmes wrapping around the back. The Sharks No.1 threw a cut-out to former Raider Edrick Lee, and in full stride Lee turned it back inside to his centre Ricky Leutele to score.

The Raiders responded quickly with Rapana making up for his earlier indiscretion. He palmed off Jayden Brailey, before finding Joey Leilua on his outside. Leilua did well to time his pass back on the inside to Abbey the try-scorer.

Holmes continued to look more and more threatening as the half went on. First he ran onto an inside ball from Graham to sprint into the backfield before trying to grubber past Abbey — a trick play they have down to a fine art.

Then Townsend gave him early ball out the back of a decoy runner, and one-on-one with Michael Oldfield he was too classy, stepping inside to leave the makeshift centre clutching at thin air.

Graham then put his name forward for early man of the match honours too, when he went to acting-half on the Raiders line and carried four of the visitors over the line before reachin gout backwards over his head to score the Sharks’ fourth on the cusp of half-time.

The Green Machine had to score first and did when Blake Austin took a quick tap and forced his way over the Sharks line before popping it up for Leilua who grounded the footy to close the gap to two converted tries.

Holmes then made his first error of the game when he failed to defuse a bomb under plenty of pressure.

But he made it up to his teammates when he rolled a rampaging Josh Hodgson onto his back before stripping the ball from his grasp to save the try.

The Raiders continued to press though, and after Rapana sent Elliott Whitehead surging downfield with a classy offload, Leilua muscled his way over from close range to narrow the deficit to just four points.

With 20 minutes to go and only four points separating the two sides, the Sharks were on the attack when the touch judge on the right sideline put his flag up presumably to signal a knock-on from Jesse Ramien.

The touchie quickly put his flag away but not before the Raiders players had seen it and stopped, allowing Sione Katoa to stroll in untouched.

The bunker overruled the onfield no-try decision to award it, and when thier own four-pointer was stopped by the refs for a disputable forward pass from Joey Leilua, they couldn’t recover.