DARYL Powell said the 18-16 defeat at Hull FC was ‘tough to take’ after a controversial late try consigned his Warrington Wolves team to a sixth loss in seven matches.

He felt a decision to award the winning Manu Ma’u try in which the ball was not seen to touch the ground was ‘a guess’ and rough on his men, whom he felt worked hard in the second game of the Easter period and led in the final 10 minutes thanks to Matty Ashton’s second try.

As the powerful New Zealander crashed over the line in the 78th minute Warrington defenders appeared to have got themselves underneath the ball but referee Chris Kendall sent the live call as a try to the video referee Marcus Griffiths who had no replays to prove the ball had not been grounded and therefore awarded the score.

“It was a really tough game. Obviously the second game over Easter is always difficult with a short turnaround,” said Powell, who was also critical of the decision to send Wire second rower Ben Currie to the sin-bin in the first half and labelled Kendall as an ‘inconsistent referee’ currently.

“There was nothing in the game really. Level at half-time and the game could have gone either way.

“I’m disappointed that we lost and I think it’s a tough call at the end with that final try.

“I just think that we’re guessing whether a try has been scored. I don’t think it’s a good way for a professional sport to make decisions but it is what it is.

“The referee’s making a decision there that it’s a try and I think that’s a crazy decision to make.

“I think it had to go the other way because you couldn’t see the ball going down, so I think it had to be a ‘no try’ and then ask ‘has he got it down?’ “When the players came up it was obvious it was on one of our players’ chests so it just doesn’t make any sense to me.

“But it is where we are at the moment. We’ve had different ways of doing it in this country and I think there’s a better way than where we currently sit.”

Hull took the lead while The Wire were down to 12 men early in the game following Currie’s yellow card for obstruction.

Powell said: “He didn’t do anything. I couldn’t understand why he went to the sin-bin to be honest.

“But that’s this referee at the moment, he’s an inconsistent referee and you don’t know what you’re working with at times.”

Powell praised his players for their efforts, not only in the loss to Hull FC but the win against Salford five days earlier.

He added: “I thought we worked really hard, as we have done all over Easter. The boys have been class in their effort and commitment.

“We’re still trying to find our groove at the moment but we’re going in the right direction.

“We had a late try against us after we’d built ourselves a winning position. I just thought we worked hard all the way through. From that perspective, it’s been class all Easter.

“We’re just trying to find our game and the way that we want to play. And under fatigue that becomes pretty hard.

“It was a real battle of attrition out there and they were making big metres and we were too but neither team could find that clarity of attack to break the other down.

“I thought we had some really good pieces of play that gave us opportunities, one we took and one we didn’t in the second half which could have been the difference but ultimately we’ve lost a tight game and that’s disappointing but there’s lots of things to be proud of the team about.

“You can see it’s a topsy-turvy season this one. There’s a lot of teams trying to find their groove and it’s going to be a tough one. We’ve just got to keep on improving.”

Powell said it is difficult to correct areas during this period with games coming hot on the heels of the previous one.

“You don’t get much chance to train really. We’ve had one team run session. You watch the opposition but you can’t do anything specific against them. And that’s going to be the same this week, we’ll have one training session and then the team run and you can’t really do that much. So it’s hard for players,” said Powell.

“Players have to get their heads out of rugby at times otherwise it’d just be madness, battering them over the head with rugby league for 15 days straight or whatever it is where you hardly get any breathing space.

“It's hard to critique and grow as a team over this period. You are just sort of holding yourselves together really and I think we’ve done that pretty well. We’ve got a tough game against Huddersfield on Saturday and we just need to get ourselves ready for that.

“As I said, I think this season is going to be a really topsy-turvy one. I think at some point we will find our groove and you’d want that to be sooner rather than later but we won’t have an awful lot of time to work on that this week so it is difficult.

“You do get one session but it’s not a lot. It’s about looking after players and getting them ready to go again and keeping the mood up when you lose a game so we’ll get ready for Saturday and hopefully come up with a performance that gets the win but Huddersfield are going pretty well. I know they lost today but they’re going pretty well.”

Powell does not believe the loss to Hull will be a step backwards in the players’ mood ahead of the Huddersfield game but an assessment will be needed on skipper Jack Hughes following his shoulder dislocation in the first half.

“I think we’ll be alright. Spirit’s good, we’ve had a good couple of weeks, we’ve lost a game by a couple of points so there was nothing in it. There’s nothing there in terms of issues, we’ve just got to freshen ourselves up and get ready to go and find some little bits of improvement,” he said.

“When you’re out there and there’s a fair bit of fatigue and a bit of pressure in terms of the way the game is going sometimes you can’t pull your game together the way you want to and I thought that was the case, particularly in yardage, but we went forward great and worked so hard and to lose it like that is tough to take to be honest. But loads of signs that are positive for us at the moment.

“Jack dislocated his shoulder and it took a while to go back in. He’s alright, he’s had a bit of pain relief so he’s pretty comfortable at the moment but we’ll have to find the full details of that which is obviously disappointing for him and for us and forced a different change in the team which made life a little more difficult for us.”