Justin Horo

investigating it like right before game two and I'm like well Ashley Klein has nothing to answer for if he has not done nothing wrong in and around the NRL but the more that people have I've discussed it with you know especially Jimmy Smith on SEN yesterday I think for his own mental health and well-being

it's probably not in his best – he's probably not going to be in the best state of mind to make huge decisions.

Even though I've had my criticisms around Ashley Cline, the one thing that I've always said is that, you know, he would not be my top referee but he's clearly shown no bias throughout the years for anyone.

So that's one thing I want to make clear with it and that's –

Going to be a really tough night for not only him, his team that he works with, the NRL, with all this uncertainty, a bit of a cloud around the game heading into the game.

Because if there is a contentious decision, if the decision that happened in game one happens in game two, something, I know you're not going to get an exact like for like for that, but it's going to be extremely difficult for him to make a strong decision.

That's what it sounds like.

That's what it is.

What's your comment on it?

I'm looking at the comments section.

If you go look at any of the articles or anything around the articles –

I can't see how that's not going to come up after game two for whatever team.

Whatever team gets the wrong decision against them is going to use this as ammunition for him.

So because of that, even though I thought it was wrong initially, I don't know how he referees game two with a clear mind.

Surely they have because it's been 48 hours since this article dropped, maybe a little bit more.

You sent it to me originally.

So despite –

despite the article being factually correct that he did go through this and then he commented himself around his problems, the timing of it is a smear.

It's like he's trying to smear Ashley Klein's name just before game two.

Do you agree with me on my first take that the NRL should have got on top of this straightaway though?