NRL referees boss Graham Annesley has defended officials in the wake of One NZ boss Jason Paris accusing referees of “cheating” in the New Zealand Warriors’ defeat to the Penrith Panthers on Saturday.

Paris described referee decisions against the club as “cheating of the highest order” on social media during the side’s 18-6 loss. One NZ is a main sponsor of the Warriors.

“There is no comment that could be worse than the type of comment that we’ve seen over the last 24 hours in relation to the integrity of the game,” Annesley said.

“We can question their decision-making. I have no problem with that. We can’t question their integrity because it not only does it question the integrity of the people who are out on the field, making the decisions, it questions the integrity of the entire NRL administration.

One NZ CEO Jason Paris has questioned the refereeing of the Warriors in the NRL. Photo / Dean Purcell

“I can go probably to eight losing clubs on any given week and they’ll all tell me they didn’t get the rub of the green. This is not something that is peculiar to a team in New Zealand or anywhere else for that matter. Every club when they lose. They all believe that the so-called 50-50 decisions, whatever that is, didn’t go their way.

“Referees get dropped when they make major errors. If their form isn’t good, they get dropped just like players, but there’s rubbish about they’re unaccountable and they’re protected species. Well, yes. We will protect them when they’re attacked unnecessarily, and when they’re attacked unjustly, we’re not gonna just sit back idly and allow their integrity and the integrity of the administration of the game and the integrity of rugby league to be attacked without justification.”

Paris later retracted the cheating allegations as officials look at legal action.

“A bit of interest in my support for the mighty @NZWarriors. Just to clear things up - I do not think the @NRL referees are cheating. They come to work everyday to do their best job for the game. My comments were made in the heat of the moment as a passionate fan,” Paris said on Twitter yesterday.

“However, I do believe that there is unconscious bias happening every week against the Warriors & it needs to be addressed. All we want is consistency, but we are not getting it. Take opinions out of it & analyse the video footage from past games & compare our decisions vrs other teams. I think it will find that we are being disadvantaged - then we can work out why & take steps to fix it.

“We will always back our team.”

The NRL referees’ union is considering taking legal action against Paris, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The newspaper reports the Professional Rugby League Match Officials (PRLMO) - which represents the sport’s referees - has spoken to lawyers about potentially launching defamation proceedings against Paris, the chief executive of One NZ.

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo hit back at Paris’ comments, saying the NRL was reviewing them closely and “questioning their integrity is completely unacceptable”.

PRLMO boss Matt Cecchin said his organisation sought out advice from lawyers about their position.

“It’s not called for and the comments are appalling,” Cecchin told the Sydney Morning Herald. “It does nothing to help and improve officials within our game, or any officials really. That’s why we’ll do whatever we can to ensure comments like this are stamped out of our game, and stamped out of any game for any officials.

“Any sort of mention of the word bias, be it conscious or unconscious, is just unacceptable. It hurts our game at every level.

“We feel strong enough to seek legal opinion and based on the information we’ll pursue whatever means necessary to ensure that it’s seen as a deterrent for anyone who thinks about making any such comments around bias.”

Referee Todd Smith talks to Tohu Harris and Demitric Sifakula of the Warriors during their match against the Panthers. Photo / Getty

The Warriors only conceded two penalties more than the Panthers in the loss, but gave away four ruck infringements to one and had two players - Jackson Ford and Demitric Sifakula - sin-binned in the second half of the contest.

“Officials make mistakes like players do in every game,” Cecchin said. “We learn from those, but the comments taken offence to here do nothing to improve the standard of officiating. Make comments about mistakes is one thing, but suggesting bias or cheating is just not acceptable.

“We feel the comments made by this person don’t reflect 99 per cent of people that know anything about, or follow rugby league. That’s why they’re so out of the norm it’s not funny. We’re doing this to protect past officials, present officials and emerging officials.

“That’s why we’ll do whatever it takes.”