North Queensland Cowboys coach Paul Green has lashed the referees after his team’s loss to South Sydney on Thursday night claiming the amount of penalties stifled the flow of the game.

“The whole game was stop-start,” Green said.

“Just as the game started to get going there would be a run of penalties and stoppages so it was a bit frustrating.

“We found we didn’t really get into our game.

“We won the penalty count so I’m not whinging about the penalties. You see State of Origin games and the penalty count is 3-2 or something like that and then the game flows.

“I just felt there were too many penalties there tonight.

“They stopped the game and checked things and then played on; the game didn’t flow.”