Frustration increases for Agar after suffering sleepless nights

Dean Collis misses Sunday’s game at Wigan after receiving a two-game ban for making a Grade C dangerous contact on Bradford Bulls’ Lee Gaskell.

The Australian centre made an early guilty plea even though the club believe it was not actually an illegal cannonball tackle.

Agar explained: “As coaches, we all sat around at the start of the year and decided cannonball tackles – and I suppose attacks on the legs and any irresponsibility – is something we and refs didn’t want the game to look like.

“When people are held up in the tackle and left vulnerable to people spearing in it’s not good and it’s undefendable.

“But Dean certainly isn’t a player that attacks people’s legs and he didn’t here.

“I will cop the EGP on the fact poor Lee Gaskell got a 12-week injury and that’s not great.

“But in this tackle I don’t think he was held up; he was spinning out of it and his legs were still moving. I felt Dean was more than entitled to go down on his legs and it’s six and two threes whether it would have been graded.

“If it hadn’t have been on TV nothing would have come of it and it certainly wouldn’t if Lee had not got injured. So, I’m not really happy with it but for the betterment of the sport, and if we have to have some short-term pain for a safer game and get this fairly nasty element out, then we’ll cop it even though Deano’s not quite sure what he’s done.

“But then we see (Catalan’s) Julian Bousquet get four games for a Grade D and Scott Moore get off on a Grade D. Please tell me what’s going on that Dean can get two games on a C that should be three to five games and Moore on a Grade D, appeals and gets off.

“I’m staggered. You wouldn’t find a head coach in the game who saw those incidents and hasn’t got the same opinion as me. I’m wishing we’d appealed now. I thought Deano might get a warning or one game.”

Agar has other issues over their fixture list and an inability to gain a visa for NRL rookie Harry Siejka, despite signing him in October.

“I suppose I feel like, as a club, at the moment, we’re entitled to ask some questions,” he said.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think for one minute Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman but neither am I a coach who will look and think ‘Poor me, we’re the victims, there’s a conspiracy going on here’.

“But I’ll go right back to the start of the year and this is why we’re asking questions on consistency.

“We wanted to play two 16-year-olds on Boxing Day, went down the proper channels, asked permission and got refused.

“I know other Super League teams played 16 year-olds in the trial games. I asked the same question for the Featherstone trial game, spoke to a different person who said yes, so we played them yet got a ‘please explain’ letter from the RFL asking why we’re playing two 16-year-olds?

“Then there’s Harry Siejka. He’s on his third appeal now and I think we’ve got him. But I’d love to know why ‘Seeker’ can’t get a visa and (Hull FC’s) Jacob Miller and Jordan Rankin can.

“Miller’s playing record is near identical to Siejka’s. I’m just not quite sure what the difference is.

“I had a look at four-day turnarounds on Sunday to Thursday games too. Us and Bradford have one and Castleford have three but I haven’t seen any of the top six have to do any. I’ve had some sleepless nights. What do we have to do to get a break?”

Teenagers Luke Briscoe and Jordan Crowther both make their Super League debuts at Wigan.