‘Sick’ Phil Gould drops hammer on NRL referees after Round 19 action

NRL legend Phil Gould has unloaded on the NRL refereeing performances from Round 19, saying that the game's referees "care only about their own reputations" and that their tendency to go into "self-preservation mode" when it came to 50/50 decisions was hurting the game as a whole.

Speaking on Nine's 100% Footy, Gould didn't miss in his take-down of the weekend's adjudication.

"A lot of it (the refereeing) is a continuation and a development of what we've seen in the past - self-preservation mode," Gould said.

"The referees don't want to be criticised by the end of the game for a close call, so they call that forward pass, or that illegal tackle."

"And how's that working for them? Not so good."

When conversation moved around the panel, eventually returning to the ex-Penrith Panthers boss, he touched on a specific moment from the weekend that accurately summed up his feelings.

"I felt sick watching that Warriors game the other day," Gould claimed.

"I'm not a Warriors fan, and I'm not an Eels fan. But I felt sick for the Warriors. I don't know how (Warriors coach) Stephen Kearney controlled himself," Gould finished.

The incident he was referencing came in the dying seconds of Saturday's clash.

Trailing by two points (24-22), the Warriors made a break down the right edge through fullback Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. Drawing contact from two defenders, Tuivasa-Sheck managed to wriggle a forearm free, to shovel a miracle offload to Gerard Beale, who was en-route to dotting down the game winner, untouched, when he threw his arms up in despair upon hearing the referee's whistle - called back for a perceived forward pass.

Doubling down, Gould then kindly offered viewers an impromptu physics lesson as a means of illustrating his point.

"[On the notion of the ball travelling forward but being back out of the hand] It's like dropping an apple out of a car window at speed, it travels forward," Gould said.

"When a guy is running full-tilt at the fullback, and his hand is literally pointing backwards, how could it be a forward pass?! It's physically impossible."

Gould's impassioned words came after the news that as a result of the Eels vs Warriors clash, four referees (Chris Sutton, Chris Butler and touch judges Clayton Sharpe and Adam Cassidy) had been stood down from their duties this weekend.

Underling his point, when quizzed on the notion of the potential use of hawk-eye and new technology to rule on 50/50 calls, Gould was sarcastic in his dismissal.

"We have all these issues, all these problems, and how do we want to fix it? With more technology. Right," Gould said

You can catch Gus' full thoughts on 100% Footy, on Channel Nine tonight at 10:30pm