Nathan Brown has accused NRL referees of abandoning Graham Annesley’s early-season edict to let the game flow, claiming Newcastle haven’t been getting ‘a fair crack’ after Saturday’s 24-20 loss to the New Zealand Warriors.

An unimpressed Brown cited a missed forward pass in the lead up to Ken Maumalo’s second try in the 55th minute in a lengthy spray aimed at the officials.

However, the Knights also benefited when the referees missed a knock on in before Sione Mata'utia’s opening try while the Warriors had two four-pointers controversially disallowed by The Bunker.

But Brown claimed his Knights have been hard done by for several weeks and declared the whistle-blowers have reverted to looking for nit-picking penalties.

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“The game’s being refereed extremely different to what it was at the start of the year, that’s for sure,” Brown, who was missing seven players through Origin duties and injuries on Saturday, said.

“They want to penalise now whereas at the start of the year they didn’t want to penalise.

“They’re looking for reasons to give away penalties, they can’t wait to do it against us.”

He added: “We’re not getting a fair crack of the whip at the moment.

“That’s the reality, everyone’s seen it, for whatever reason.

“…They (referees) get a hard time from the media and a hard time from coaches but we’ve had a pretty lean run over the past five or six weeks … we’ve certainly had some large penalty counts against us.”

Meanwhile, Warriors coach Stephen Kearney conceded he has stopped trying to guess which way The Bunker will rule on decisions.

“I think a bit like everyone I’ve sort of given up trying to give my view on it (decisions) because at the end of the day they’re pushing the button,” Kearney said.

“I think over the course of the last couple of weeks there’s been a few howlers, but what’s me saying what I think about it going to change?”

But while Kearney agreed with Brown’s claim more penalties are being blown, he put the blame on teams he claims are deliberately slowing down the ruck in an attempt to nullify the Warriors’ potent back-five.