'Tad ridiculous': Fittler questions Burton binning

NSW coach Brad Fittler hit out at the sin-binning of centre Matt Burton, while Blues captain James Tedesco questioned why firmer action wasn’t taken against Queensland forward Tino Fa'asuamaleaui in Wednesday night’s brutal series decider at Suncorp Stadium.

Burton, who was left with swelling under his left eye after trading punches with Maroons centre Dane Gagai, was sent to the sin-bin after a fiery start to the second half but the Blues camp say he was merely defending himself and pointed out Fa'asuamaleaui had placed him in a headlock.

Fa'asuamaleaui received two charges after the match for dangerous conduct and also for a high tackle on Burton in the first half but remained on the field.

Gagai and Burton were also charged, with the trio escaping suspension after receiving fines.

“He didn’t initiate it, Burto. He’s not going to fight anyone,” Fittler said. “At the end of the day, we got the penalty, he got belted, got put in a headlock and we walked out with one player each [in the sinbin]. It’s a tad ridiculous.”

Tedesco spoke with referee Ashley Klein after Gagai and Burton were sin-binned, and told him that Fa'asuamaleaui should be joining them.

“I thought so," Tedesco said. "I spoke to Ashley about it."

The Blues led 12-10 at the time after conceding a try on the last tackle of the first half and the violent opening to the second half appeared to lift the Maroons.

“It is just disappointing,” Fittler said. “We have worked so hard for so long in amongst club footy and the rest of it. We have trained hard and given up and sacrificed and you lose.

“It hurts but normally that is what makes people strive harder and we have got to strive harder. They [Queensland] are a very good team, they played with great energy. Ben Hunt was outstanding, and Kalyn Ponga. They were definitely the better team.”

While Queensland’s win was arguably the greatest in their history, Fittler said it wasn’t one of the great Origin contests because NSW made too many errors as both teams battled fatigue following the loss of Cameron Murray, Selwyn Cobbo and Lindsay Collins to head knocks in the opening four minutes.

A Daniel Tupou fumble from a Daly Cherry-Evans kick led to Kurt Capewell’s try just before halftime, while centre Stephen Crichton threw a pass into his own in-goal that gifted a goal-line drop-out to the Maroons and Siosifa Talakai produced three errors when thrust into action from the bench.

“They were just crucial errors, there were a couple of bad ones on our line,” Fittler said. “It is what it is. We had a couple of chances at the end, but we just ran out of legs from defending our line for such a long time.

“It took us a long time to get out of our end and to get to the lead. Then obviously with a minute to go [before halftime], to come up with an error that cost us a try, that hurt because we had worked so hard.”